Xi begins Serbia visit on the 25th anniversary of NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy

By JOVANA GEC and DUSAN STOJANOVIC
Associated Press

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to European ally Serbia falls on a symbolic date: the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy during NATO’s air war over Kosovo. Xi arrived Tuesday from France. On May 7, 1999 U.S. jets dropped five bombs on the Chinese Embassy compound in Belgrade, setting it ablaze and killing three Chinese nationals. Twenty other people were injured in the bombing, which has burdened relations between the two powers ever since. The Western military alliance had launched the air war in March that year to force then Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic to end a brutal onslaught against ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo.