Xi Says China Will ‘Never Forget’ the US Bombing of Its Embassy

President Xi Jinping vowed to “never forget” NATO’s deadly bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, during a European trip that’s amplifying fissures in the region’s support for the US.

“Twenty-five years ago today, NATO flagrantly bombed the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia, killing three Chinese journalists,” Xi said, in a Tuesday article published in Politika, Serbia’s oldest daily newspaper. “That we should never forget,” he added. “We will never allow such tragic history to repeat itself.”

During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, US missiles killed three Chinese journalists in a strike the White House later called a mistake and blamed on faulty maps. That event sparked widespread anti-US protests across China and cemented Beijing’s mistrust of US-led groups such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.