The former Chinese president Jiang Zemin has admitted in an unpublished memoir that Serbian military intelligence units were hiding inside the Chinese embassy in Belgrade when Nato bombed it in 1999.
The memoir is reported to say that Jiang acceded to a personal plea from Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader, to shelter key military intelligence personnel, and that 14 Serbs and three Chinese citizens died there when US bombers struck.
Although the United States apologised for the raid — which led to anti-western demonstrations in China — blaming faulty target mapping by the CIA, the Chinese government never accepted this explanation.
Now a Chinese-language magazine in Hong Kong has published what it says is an account of the bombing from a series of essays written in retirement by Jiang, 85, who stepped down from his last post in 2004.
It said Jiang regretted allowing the Serbs sanctuary inside China’s diplomatic mission and believed it was a serious political mistake. The memoir is said to tell how a furious Chinese government was forced to mute its protests after the Americans privately presented evidence of Serbian electronic communications from within the embassy.
The diplomatic bargain appeared to be that the Americans saved China’s face by apologising for a “mistake” and the Chinese allowed the street rage to cool off without serious violence.
Jiang believes the bombing destroyed his relationship with Bill Clinton, then the US president, according to the magazine Qiansao (Outpost), which quoted Jiang aides and family members. He appears to have gambled and lost because he saw a chance to outflank Russia, which had refused to help Milosevic protect his intelligence assets.
The magazine claimed the Chinese were already sending secret supplies of surface-to-air missiles to the former Yugoslavia through Libya. “When the air campaign began, Yugoslavia’s defence ministry, information department and police headquarters were all destroyed by Nato bombs,” it said, quoting the memoir.
“Slobodan Milosevic once again asked Jiang to allow core departments of military intelligence to take refuge in the Chinese embassy basement so as to keep operating.” The Chinese leader agreed.
As the Nato bombing intensified, the Chinese foreign ministry asked Jiang if it could withdraw its staff from Belgrade, but he ordered them to stay put as a sign of solidarity with Milosevic, the memoir admits.
Nato was bombing Serbia to force it to withdraw from Kosovo, a province seeking independence. To China, fighting its own separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang, it was a matter of principle to support the government in Belgrade.
Although the memoir seems not to say so, there was another reason for Chinese involvement on Serbia’s side. The magazine says Milosevic’s agents handed over to China some navigation gear, thermal insulation and part of a jet exhaust from an American F-117 Stealth fighter shot down over the Balkans. China surprised the Americans by unveiling its own stealth fighter in a test flight last month.
The Belgrade bombing is one of “two regrets” in Jiang’s memoir, said Qiansao. The other is his decision to stage a crackdown on the Falun Gong meditation group.
Chinese journalists believe the magazine’s account of the memoirs is authentic, pointing to previous instances when high-level documents or memoirs have first appeared as leaks in Hong Kong.
Asked about the magazine’s claims, Nato referred to a statement made by Jamie Shea, then its spokesman, in May 1999, calling the incident “a tragic mistake”.
On the same day, asked if Nato had evidence of “collaboration” between the Serbs and the Chinese embassy, its military spokesman Major-General Walter Jertz replied: “I would only speculate ... but I’m not going to do that.”
