Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Serbia on the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was “timed to raise tensions” in relations with the West, Washington’s special envoy for the Western Balkans said. , Gabriel Escobar, in an online briefing to commemorate the end of his stay in Belgrade, writes the Hong Kong edition of the South China Morning Post on May 8.
Xi Jinping landed in the Serbian capital on May 7 as part of his European tour. This is the first visit by a Chinese leader to Europe since 2019. His arrival in Belgrade on May 7, the day the United States launched an airstrike on the Chinese embassy in 1999, was seen as a deliberate move that would give the visit a geopolitical advantage.
“Twenty-five years ago today, NATO brutally bombed the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia, killing three Chinese journalists. We must never forget this.” – wrote Xi Jinping in an article published on May 7 in the Serbian newspaper Politika.
Escobar, who is leaving his post as Washington’s special envoy to the Western Balkans, criticized the timing of Xi Jinping’s visit.
“The visit was timed to increase tensions between Serbia and the rest of the Western community, and this is useless,” – he said.
“We, the United States, said that the bombing of the Chinese embassy in 1999 was an accident.Escobar explained. — We apologize. I think we even paid reparations to families. But… I think the time of the visit was chosen poorly, but deliberately.”
Source: Rossa Primavera
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