On May 7, 1999 a U.S. B-2 stealth bomber dropped five precision bombs on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia/Serbia. Later, the U.S. would announce that it had been intending to blow up a warehouse or maybe an office building, but definitely a different structure; but, you know, kids these days just can't read maps. Or the fog of war. Or something. Eventually, CIA director George Tenet admitted that the Chinese embassy was the lone target the CIA had picked out during the entire NATO bombing campaign. But of course it was all just a big mistake, and they had really sent the B-2 all the way from Missouri to blow up something down the street.
The Chinese government was hopping mad, but also a little tight-lipped.
The Chinese government was hopping mad, but also a little tight-lipped.
At the time, I figured it had to do with the Serbs shooting down an F-117 stealth fighter about six weeks earlier. I had assumed that the feared, efficient Serbian secret police had immediately assumed control of the high-tech wreckage and were auctioning it off in one piece to a summit conference of international malefactors, kind of like in the opening scene of The Naked Gun. After all, the ruthless totalitarian efficiency of the Serbian government had to be why America was bombing the heck out of some place that I could never quite pinpoint on a map of Europe: because they hate freedom.
Looking into it, however, I see that what actually happened to the wreckage was that part of the downed stealth fighter had been immediately carted away by a Gypsy scrap metal dealer. That morning local girls posed all over the rest of it for pictures (punching holes in the wings with their stiletto heels), and pretty much everybody in the neighborhood hacked off a souvenir. Eventually, some curators from an airplane museum in Belgrade arrived and organized a human shield of civilians to keep NATO from dropping a bomb on it. The museum eventually put chunks of the plane on display, and its gift shop sold postage stamp-sized pieces of the F-117 to 2,000 visitors as mementos.
Like I said, they must hate freedom.
About six weeks later, the Chinese embassy goes kablooey. But of course that was just an accident. And a coincidence. An accidental coincidence.
From the Daily Mail in 2011:
But the plot thickened last month when Qiansao, a Hong Kong Chinese-language magazine, published a series of essays written in retirement by former Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
In the magazine the 85-year-old former premier, who stepped down in 2004, says that the Chinese Embassy was sheltering Serbian intelligence personnel when it was bombed and that the Americans had been able to monitor Serbian military electronic communications coming out of the building.
But just as importantly, Jiang Zemin also added that Milosevic had instructed agents to hand over to the Chinese navigation gear, part of the tail engine exhaust and thermal panels from Vega 31. The Chinese media reported that the pieces of the aircraft were picked up by cargo aircraft and flown to Beijing.
Supposedly, the retired Chinese supremo considered his attempt to outflank Russia by cozying up to Milosevic, in retrospect an obvious loser, as one of his two big mistakes in office.
As you'll recall, Chinese-American relations got tense after that, including a Chinese fighter bumping into an American P-3 in 2001. But then 9/11 came along and this stuff was mostly forgotten.
As you'll recall, Chinese-American relations got tense after that, including a Chinese fighter bumping into an American P-3 in 2001. But then 9/11 came along and this stuff was mostly forgotten.