On May 7, 1999 the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was purposefully hit and destroyed by three missiles, causing the loss of human lives and many wounded. 

Although the world has become used to pictures of destruction by many new atrocities by NATO terrorism, the debate about this attack against the Chinese embassy has not at all died away yet. In particular in China itself there is an ongoing vehement debate about the circumstances, so that even the "Neue Zuercher Zeitung" had to admit, in a spiteful commentary of May 26, that "the firing at the embassy which had demanded three dead and more than twenty wounded is, even after more than two weeks, still one of the main subjects."

Indeed, the circumstances are so astounding, and the explanations for this occurrence by NATO which repeatedly contradicted each other are so threadbare that nobody can earnestly suppose an accident out of marginal causes, such as for example the inadequacy of some maps allegedly used by the CIA. Rather it is necessary to analyze politically what the US by such a deed is aiming at, which even among the allies gave rise to considerable doubts. 

Here in fact some premonition about the longtime strategy behind the Rapid Deployment Forces concept may be gained.

The bombing of the Chinese embassy can only be viewed as kind of a warning shot, an act aiming at pressuring the Chinese government to do what NATO is wishing with regard to Serbia. To dismiss the matter as an accident or "collateral damage" would be equal to insisting on something very, very improbable. The various descriptions of the "error" which in NATO‘s utterances followed one another, one contradicting each other, we do not want to repeat here. (Note). All the more it is conspicuous how the US has been urging China in the negotiations at the UN and up to today to acknowledge the so-called "error", though without success so far.

It was a direct military threat against a nation which so far has been supporting the Serbian cause, which in its official statements has been marking NATO‘s bombings as what they are, and also in the media has been breaking the chain of the opinion monopoly by which one attempts to surround Serbia. That against this nation such a terroristic military action was started speaks a very clear language by itself. The US and NATO are establishing Wild West terrorism on a global scale and with the most modern and heaviest arms inventory. And Clinton and his gang, coming right afterwards and demanding from the whole world to fall on its knees and parrot: yes, it was an error, or in the case of opposition to take the risk of being the victim to the next bomb, are showing the true colours of US- and NATO-terrorism: a kind of gangsterism against the whole world population, not at all only against Serbia.

Even the German chancellor Schroeder, by the way, called the bombing a "bloody disgrace"- of course he is not allowed to say it is a deliberate heinous deed.

We think that also for the Chinese diplomacy it can in no way be useful to finally agree to a compromise with these US-NATO-terrorists. In fact, their plans do not only aim at bringing the economic potentials of Russia and China under some form of their control, but above all also the heavy weapons and in particular the nuclear weapons potentials. One of the aims which has already longtime become known is a secession of Tibet. One must not view that in such a way that China by its magnitude is able to easily prevent that, as the US and NATO are calculating splits within China itself. They are thinking, for example, of playing off the South and the North against each other, of provoking certain conflicts in order to make use of a moment of paralysis then for occupying Tibet by surprise, for example. And then the Chinese army would have a hard time to keep this region which logistically is difficult to supply. Such developments can anyway be thought of. If the US and its allies such as NATO would really succeed in neutralizing Tibet in this or that way or in extending its rule on it, even if only in parts, then they would simultaneously move very close to Sinkiang, the Chinese nuclear weapons centre. Also there they have separatist movements by Islamic fundamentalists which like to act in accordance with their wishes. If Tibet was lost for China, also Sinkiang would come under tremendous pressure. In this case, China would be reduced to the East and placed into a catch-22-situation. The Tibet question is of strategical importance.

The huge areas of Tibet and Sinkiang which historically have longtime been belonging to China also serve as an important protection for this large population of 1,2 billion concentrated in Central China. Moreover, these regions because of their resources or also because of the opportunity to develop the nuclear weaponry there, as in Sinkiang, have a huge strategic importance for this most numerous and oldest people of the globe.

Such thoughts, surely, are to some degree anticipations in the momentary developments of today. But as the events in the Balkans have shown, NATO‘s fury and panic must not be underestimated. Obviously they strive to get everything under their control which might be able to put up resistance to them anywhere. It can not be ruled out either that they speed up their attempts to create separation endeavours. Very certainly, their efforts won‘t reach the skies, and there are already now many rocks lying in the way to their successes. But one should not underestimate these things, one has to acknowledge that hugeness of territory is no longer an absolute obstacle today, in the age of satellite technology and of airlifts over large distances. The military strategists of the US and of NATO will always try to find out where the weak points of a large country are, into which they are able to enter. They don‘t know limits to their accompanying social demagogy. If still yesterday they were loudly voicing support for the capitalistic developments in China, cherishing them as a blessed event in accordance with their wishes, tomorrow they will make use of the social consequences of these developments in order to say: we must intervene as protectors. They are not ashamed of building up the former theocratic slaveholder ruler of Tibet to a symbol of "human rights" and "non-violence" who in fact is a symbol exactly of the merciless violence of depraved ruling classes against the own people.
 

In their reports about the protests against the destruction of the embassy, the Western media also made allusions to social conflicts in China. Formerly, as mentioned already, during the eighties they ecstatically celebrated that China was becoming capitalistic and now would act in accordance with the wishes of capitalism, and booked this as a success for themselves. Now, of course, they are not at all reluctant to make use of the capitalistic contradictions which meanwhile have resulted in China, for their own purposes. 

In China completely rightfully there were long rallies to condemn this act of terrorism against the own embassy. This large country felt that the US and NATO had dared to committ an aggressive act aiming at intimidation, and the reaction, fortunately, was the corresponding one. And it is interesting how the press in the Western countries reacted.

Western newspapers commenting the demonstrations against the bombing of the embassy immediately said, how easily the demonstrations could go off the rails and take a different course, thereby giving a hint: if China would not put brakes to the fury against the US and NATO, they themselves would try to bring different, namely social inflammatory stuff into the demonstrations. The Los Angeles Times, for example, wrote in a commentary of May 10, 99, about the protests:

"In this politically sensitive time, when unemployment and economic uncertainty abound, allowing people to gather in protest has risks."

China‘s struggle for keeping its independence, its resistance must decidedly be supported, independently from how one may judge certain social developments. 

However evil the war against Serbia is, it has the function to demonstrate to the peoples and states the explosive nature of these efforts by NATO and other US allies such as Japan. Obviously during the past eight years there have been feverish efforts to create the potentials for worldwide interventions from the part of the main camp of capitalism. 

Editorial staff of Neue Einheit
June 2, 1999
Internet statement 17/99       (author: Hartmut Dicke)