Washington Post, May. 11, 1999

By Jonathan Kolatch

For those seeking root causes for the extreme Chinese reaction to the Belgrade embassy bombing, and the complicity of the Chinese government in allowing the riots to sustain themselves, answers are readily available.

Almost without exception, the front page of People's Daily limits itself to official China: visits by foreign leaders, visits abroad by Chinese leaders, major government campaigns such as the war against corruption. It was thus extraordinary to find -- beginning with a detailed editorial on March 25 branding the bombing of Yugoslavia a consequence of NATO's seeking to justify its existence -- dozens of front-page items (as many as six in a day) on the Kosovo situation.

These reports describe the bombing in detail, with pictures showing the destruction of Serbian homes, Belgrade petroleum depots ablaze, Serbian tanks in Kosovo awaiting movement orders, and picketing pro-Milosevic Serbian journalists vowing to bring out the truth. "Yugoslav People Determined to Defend Motherland," reads a typical headline. Chinese TV news presented the same picture.

Nary a line is devoted to the miserable plight of the Kosovars.

Is it any wonder, then, that hundreds of millions across China who read newspapers or watch television news came away with the feeling that U.S.-shepherded NATO is guilty of grand-scale aggression in Kosovo, and see the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade as a logical extension of this belligerency?

Chinese justification for the Yugoslav cause is rooted in the simple principle that Kosovo is a domestic issue, and, in the Chinese world view, all domestic issues, without exception, are immune from foreign concern. Moral conscience is not a factor. "In the entire world," the People's Daily editorial declared, "there are less than 200 countries; in total, there are more than 2,500 minorities. If we were to advocate separatism [for each of them], would not the world be a very chaotic place?"

The Chinese declaration that internal strife remains the sole concern of the controlling sovereign nation derives from the fear that if internal conflicts are opened to international adjudication, open season will be declared on its two primary international sovereignty issues: Tibet and Taiwan.

In the case of Kosovo, with Premier Zhu Rongji's visit to the United States fast approaching at the time the NATO campaign began, and with dozens of U.S. congressmen displeased with China over espionage, campaign contributions and human rights, the Chinese could have simply voiced "grave concern," as they do on most matters. They chose otherwise. The riots are the consequence.

For millennia, China considered itself to be the center of the universe. Then, starting in the middle of the 19th century, China experienced humiliation after humiliation as one foreign power after another carved spheres of influence out of Chinese soil. In the intellectual movements that ensued, the "Self-Strengthening" movement and others, China's best minds had to admit that China was a lumbering, backward entity, ill equipped to stand up to Western learning and technology. They labored mightily, and with far greater trauma than the Japanese (who went through the same process) to adapt the best of the West without ceasing to be Chinese.

The result was an inferiority-superiority complex that struggles within Chinese thinkers to this day: a deep admiration for things Western (as testified to by 200,000 Chinese students living in the United States) together with an inborn resentment at having to emulate the West. In 1985, following a soccer match in Beijing in which China failed to qualify for the World Cup, foreigners were accosted on the streets as scapegoats for China's impotence. Latent historical frustration surfaced again this past weekend in response to errant NATO bombs. In giving protesters a long leash, Chinese leaders gamble on channeling student yearnings away from democracy and toward enhanced nationalism.

China is free to take any stance it wishes on any matter -- bilateral or global. But if it wishes a sympathetic hearing on those global issues -- such as the World Trade Organization -- with a direct bearing on China, then it must show sensitivity to prevailing world sentiment in such things as the Kosovo situation. It must display flexibility and an ability to tone down the rhetoric on emotional historical issues such as Taiwan. It must prove itself able to take the lead in strategic area issues such as North Korea. And it must recognize that manipulating the news, as in the Kosovo situation, can have unforeseen consequences for China's own march forward.

Jonathan Kolatch, a writer, travels frequently to China.