Asian media lament NATO attack on Chinese embassy
Asian media lament NATO attack on Chinese embassy
SINGAPORE (Reuters): Leading Asian newspapers voiced regret on
Sunday at NATO's missile attack on China's embassy in Belgrade
with Japanese dailies urging the U.S.-led alliance to consider
ending its air strikes on Yugoslavia.
Major Japanese papers ran pictures of a bloodied Chinese
embassy worker being helped by a Yugoslavian fireman on their
front pages and the daily Mainichi Shimbun said a turning point
in the Yugoslavia crisis had been reached.
"The time has come to make a decision about ending the air
campaign," read an editorial.
NATO strikes have continued to affect Yugoslavia's civilian
population but have failed to reverse the ethnic cleansing in
Kosovo, it continued.
Keizo Obuchi, Japan's prime minister, said on Saturday that
the attack was "truly regrettable".
"I express my condolences for the victims and hope for a
peaceful resolution as soon as possible," Obuchi told reporters.
Three Chinese were killed in the attack and a score injured.
The daily Asahi Shimbun also said last Friday's missile
attack, which NATO says was a "tragic mistake", should make the
alliance reconsider its strategy.
"It has been 50 days since the air campaign started. It has
come to a state where the appropriate officials should reevaluate
the air campaign."
Hong Kong's South China Morning Post said NATO's actions had
hurt its cause but refrained from the diatribe of its mainland
neighbors which called the embassy attack a deliberate act of
aggression against China.
"There may have been a more effective way for NATO to damage
its own cause than by striking the Chinese embassy in
Belgrade...but it is difficult to imagine what," the Post said in
an editorial.
Hong Kong's Ming Pao Daily News and the pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po
were more critical.
"NATO's atrocities cannot be condoned. We most strongly
protest against NATO's warcrimes," Wen Wei Po said.
Taiwan media gave top coverage to the bombing, concentrating
on the near-rioting it sparked in Beijing and many other Chinese
cities and the role the country's state-controlled press were
playing in fanning these disturbances.
"If mainland authorities aren't careful, these sentiments
could ultimately end up turning against them," Taipei's China
Post said in an editorial.
Beijing has said it opposed NATO's military response to
Belgrade's "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian
population for fear such a strategy then could be justified to
help separatists counter China in Taiwan or Tibet.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said the embassy bombing
underscored the need for the United Nations to get more involved
in the Yugoslavia crisis.
On Saturday, India's foreign minister deplored the NATO
bombing and said the UN must take the lead in the conflict.
"This is certainly time for the United Nations now to assert
itself. NATO cannot become or pretend to become a global
gendarme," Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh told Reuters.
Manila expressed regret for the loss of life in the bombing
and also weighed in with calls for a greater role for the United
Nations.
"We believe that this is a matter for the United Nations
Security Council to discuss," the Philippine presidential
spokesman said in a statement to Reuters on Sunday.
Striking a more ominous note, veteran Philippine columnist
Maximo Soliven pondered possible further Russian and Chinese
reactions to the attack.
"Are we close to the brink than we believe?...If the NATO and
the West miscalculate, there may be hell to pay."
"Obviously we regret the bombing and the loss of life.