Chinese President Xi Jinping, on a European tour, was received in Belgrade with full honors and 20,000 people – according to official media – waving Serbian and Chinese national flags. After passing through Paris, Xi went to Belgrade to receive a mass bath and commemorate, together with President Aleksandar Vucic, the 25th anniversary of the accidental NATO bombing of his embassy in Belgrade.
The symbolic meaning of the visit is enormous, in a country where the NATO bombings are the fact that generates the most consensus of social rejection. Serbian society, despite pending possible EU membership, has harbored deep anti-Atlantic sentiment since the 1999 campaign against the former Yugoslavia to force Slobodan Milosevic to end the deliberate repression of the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
The attack against the Chinese embassy took place on the night between May 7 and 8. Five bombs fell on the diplomatic compound, killing three Chinese journalists. Twenty more people from this country were injured, in an attack that generated a deep rejection in China and forced the then president of the United States, Bill Clinton, to ask for forgiveness. Two of the journalists, Xu Xinghu (31) and Zhu Ying (27), were newlyweds. The third victim was Shao Yunhuan, 48, of the Chinese state news agency Xinhua. Her husband was one of the injured and was blinded. Washington then assured that the strike was a mistake and that the real target was the Yugoslav military procurement agency, about 500 meters away. They then agreed to compensate Beijing with $28 million.
Over the years, the episode has become an ingredient in the anti-Western rhetoric of Chinese nationalism and has been revived in recent times of rising tensions with the White House. Last year, the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, Wang Wenbin, assured that “Beijing has not forgotten or forgiven the bombing of its embassy in Belgrade in May 1999”. Xi expressed himself in the same vein in an article published this week in the Serbian newspaper Politika on the occasion of the visit. “The Chinese people appreciate peace, but they will never allow a historical tragedy to be repeated,” Xi wrote. The friendship between China and Serbia has been forged with the blood of our compatriots, who will remain in the shared memory of our two peoples.”
Relations between China and Serbia today are close, both in the political and economic fields. In his speech, Vucic, who wants both Beijing and the Kremlin to continue not recognizing Kosovo’s independence, reiterated that Belgrade considers Taiwan an integral part of China. In exchange for support in countering Kosovo’s ambition for independence, Serbia has allowed billions of euros in Chinese investment. “We will have strong support from China in all matters that are addressed at the UN. Serbia is often under pressure from the great powers. Serbia will strongly oppose attempts at historical revision and historical memories,” stressed Vucic yesterday, at a time when Belgrade is worried about the possibility of the Council of Europe accepting Kosovo as a full member.
“Despite wanting to enter the EU, Serbia does not want to give up having a good relationship with Russia and China. Both are countries that agree to defend the territorial unity of the State”, explains Aljosa Ajanovic, from the City to City Association – District 11, which promotes rapprochement between Catalonia and the Balkans. “Since Vucic has been in power, commercial relations have intensified a lot. Serbia was one of the first countries in Europe to receive the Chinese vaccine and Beijing is a major investor in Serbia, which does not demand as many human rights guarantees as the EU,” he says.
After the EU, China is the second trading partner of Serbia, which in turn is a member of the so-called Chinese New Silk Road, the massive infrastructure program with which the Asian giant wants to shore up its influence in the world Beijing has mines and factories all over Serbia, and has built bridges and roads thanks to the enthusiasm of Vucic, who last year signed a free trade agreement that takes effect in July and provides for the uprising, hence ten years, of the tariffs for a wide number of products. Yesterday both signed thirty new memoranda to intensify their cooperation. “The respect and love he will find here, in our Serbia, he will not find in other places”, Vucic promised him.
