Talk:United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade

message: Which suburb/neighborhood of Belgrade was the embassy located in at the time of the NATO bombing? — Informant763 06:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was located in New Belgrade — Beogradjanin292 07:24, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At "3 Trešnjin cvet street, Novi Beograd district, Beograd 11070, Jugoslavia".  --70.21.6.100 (talk) 00:24, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Exact location of embassy within Belgrade at the time

message: Hi everyone,
I have removed the following passage from the article:
:High-ranking NATO sources confirmed in 2005 that the attack was in fact deliberate: "The NATO sources told Defense & Foreign Affairs that the attack was based on intelligence that then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was to have been in the Embassy at the time of the attack. The attack, then, was deliberately planned as a "decapitation" attack, intended to kill Milosevic." 
Because it gives the impression that the 2005 comments are widely accepted - they are not and are really only being reported by the Centre for Research on Globalization  — a source known for its promotion of alternative theories of the 9/11 attacks that are not accepted by the mainstream media. The alternative theory that the attack was deliberate is given a brief but far more neutral treatment in the previous paragraph.  Needless to say, the sources are anonymous and their comments are not acknowledged by NATO or the United States. . If anyone greatly objects to the removal we can reinstate the quote in a way that properly acknowledges the lack of credibility behind the claim. But I'm hoping since this is a very lightly edited article, the content's removal can just be accepted outright.
Peace all!
Cedars 15:12, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Because it gives the impression that the 2005 comments are widely accepted" Then feel free to rearrange it. But the source does adhere to wiki guidelines. Maybe you could add something to the effect: but this has not been verified from other sources, or something. A human 22:32, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of quote 

message: I just finished reading Legacy of Ashes and in it Weiner purports that the CIA used a tourist map to provide the location of the FDSR.  (page 473 and 474)  He also quotes Vice Admiral Thomas R. Wilson as saying he showed him a picture of the embassy to President Clinton provided by the CIA and said, 'We're going to bomb this because it's the Yugoslav department of military procurement.'
I feel like I should jump in and rewrite this whole section but am unsure how to proceed since the two sources (Tennet's which is currently cited) vs. the Weiner book which quotes from another administration official.
:Since that I wrote the paragraph I would probably cringe if you rewrote the whole thing but copyediting is normal. Couple points is I think its best to separate out conspiracy stuff from a actual explanation of the CIA director. I don't know if he telling the truth but at least Tenent is in a position to know. If you read his statement (in the references) he says maps really didn't play a role but instead the actual databases were out of date. I would guess from that statement they were using computerize mapping. Having problems with old data and having problems converting addresses to coordinates are both common in GIS.
:Couple of things that make we question Weiner's statements. At the time, I remember a newsperson saying it hard to believe the CIA had out of date maps since you can buy a tourist map with the correct embassy location. Then I think some government official said we cannot just use maps you buy out in a bookstore. Basically I don't think they would use a tourist map and if they did it probably would be more accurate (not the cause of the problem). Also about the part about showing a picture of the embassy to the president. I remember from the news reports at the time that NATO was running out of meaningful targets. So, after launching that many bombings we were still showing a picture every bombing target to the president? So it goes something like this: "Look here Mr. President this is where they buy their jeeps. We going to blow it tomorrow." Although that part is more believable than the first part its still hard to believe. If you add it make sure to include references. Ratberta 05:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  CIA explanation 

message: Is there any credible source that makes a claim even remotely like this one?  Common sense(no common enough to not be OR) dictates that China could respond however it felt like responding.  This statement seriously needs a citation.  152.1.147.78 02:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably in a country of a billion people, there are a few people who believe this bizarre logic. But to follow the conventions for 9/11 and JFK if it really notable it should have it own "NATO Bombing conspiracies" article. This article is about what happened and we can have some other article about what people (who have zero proof) think happened. --MarsRover 04:59, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious template

message: --JanusKN 15:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's ironic Susan Shirk's explanation is much much longer than the reaction of the Chinese public. It feels like even when the people killed were Chinese and the section is called "Chinese reaction," it is still focused on how one American sees this tragedy, or more accurately, accuses the public of being brainless robots manipulated by the evil commies. Very nice.--wooddoo ]] [[User_talk:Wooddoo-eng|Eppur si muove (talk) 19:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Assuming it's the same Dr Susan Shirk who travelled with Under Secretary of State Pickering's delegation to deliver the official State Department account of events in Beijing in June 1999, her remarks should not be included in this article without appropriate contextual information. Dr. Susan Shirk was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, a member of the administration at the time.Dduff442 (talk) 04:10, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The whole article needs a rewrite 

message: I've returned the paragraphs on Susan Shirk's comments on the situation.  Her views are a valid outside analysis of the reaction in China.  The paragraphs do not say this is what was actually going on in the minds of the Chinese leadership.  They are merely her opinions, but the material adds to the reader's understanding of the event.  Dchall1 (talk) 18:11, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Liao, I removed that last paragraph about the suppression of US media. I didn't see anything in your source that said that; that article only discusses why US media did not follow up on reports that the bombing was intentional.  It's WP:OR and WP:SYN to assert that this implies a conspiracy.  If I've missed something in that article, please let me know. Dchall1 (talk) 19:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Actually, no. The majority of reliable sources indicate that NATO claims that the bombing was accidental, but they do not independently confirm this. I agree with your version of the article however, except that I think that using the phrase "conspiracy theories" is also OR and should be removed. Nikola (talk) 20:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't like Conspiracy Theories either, but I can't think of anything else.  I've put in "Alternative Views, but please change it if you have a better suggestions.  //  Chris (complaints)•(contribs) 21:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the shirk section as it introduces bias into the article, if the views of many Chinese at the time can be construed as "conspiracy theories" and deleted. Then the opinions of one US official and her theories of how she thinks what goes on inside the mind of Jiang Zemin should not be included. As this is merely an "opinion" and she does not know if this is in fact the case. If you want to include an opinion such as this, I think its only fair to present the other side of the argument as well. - Just.James talk 16:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

text: Assuming it's the same Dr Susan Shirk who travelled with Under Secretary of State Pickering's delegation to deliver the official State Department account of events in Beijing in June 1999, her remarks should not be included in this article without appropriate contextual information. Dr. Susan Shirk was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, a member of the contemporary administration.Dduff442 (talk) 04:10, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shirk section 

message: It seems like a very short article. --John (talk) 04:51, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we expand this? 

message: It just seem mildly disingenuous to me.  Anyways, I was in Belgrade over the weekend and took three photos of the Embassy.  Even though it has been almost 10 years the building is still in shambles.
With a bit of encouragement, I'd be glad to post one the photo to wikipedia...to this somewhat charged topic.  (Hint, hint.)
My Serbian mate who took me on a little tour told me things that are not in the page.  I'm going to research and edit if I can back them up.  (Three Tomahawks, one of which did not go off.  US experts came in years later to defuse.  Hersey for the moment.) Stuinzuri (talk) 19:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  A photo of the US Consulate General in HK afterward, but not of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade? 

message: The Kosovo air campaign was directed from NATO HQ in Brussels, but this was not the case with the embassy strike. I'm not clear if the strike was authorised by NATO political leaders. Some sources say yes, others that the strike was authorised under a different track requiring only US authorisation. At any rate, either Bill Clinton or Bill Clinton plus Javier Solana plus the other NATO heads of government signed off on an attack on 'Belgrade Warehouse 1,' not a strike on the sovereign territory of China.
NATO was therefore not involved in the attack planning in any meaningful way -- it was planned by the CIA and executed by the USAF. For this reason I propose re-naming the article 'US Bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade'. Those in favour or opposed are invited to state their reasons so that consensus may be reached on this issue.Dduff442 (talk) 08:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Done now. Dduff442 (talk) 18:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed Re-Naming of Article

message: If decided to delete the following statement: "China, as well as some Westerners described the demonstrations as real rather than state-orchestrated."
The statement, written by myself, was a paraphrasal of an earlier statement already on the page before I started making edits.
The following paragraph contains a fairly detailed description of the demos: spontaneous but state-sanctioned eruptions that the Chinese government attempted to control by means that would be considered unacceptable in any democratic country.
In the light of the info above, which is much more revealing, I consider the 'state orchestrated' remark redundant.
It is correct that some western pundits described the demos as 'state orchestrated' but there are any number of first-hand reports that say otherwise. It is noteworthy the demos broke out almost immediately news of the attack broke. As the study referenced states, the Chinese govt had every reason to fearful of public demonstrations: the demonstrators might turn their anger on their own leaders at any moment if they were dissatisfied with its handling of affairs and an outpouring of patriotic emotion might easily slip out of their control.
If anyone objects to this, we can put the 'state orchestrated' remark back in and go toe-to-toe on the evidence. IMO, the only result will be to clog the article with a side-issue.Dduff442 (talk) 03:46, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  State Sanctioned vs State Orchestrated Demos in China 

message: The article says: "[...] but the geographic coordinates provided by the CIA and programmed into the bombs were those of the Chinese embassy 440m (480yds) away".
440m away from what?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.226.102.133 (talk) 01:12, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: 440m away from the official target Nato's political leaders signed off on -- the Yugoimport office ("warehouse") at Bulevar Umetnosti 2. Dduff442 (talk) 05:25, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing distance information 

message: At the time of the incident I heard that it was done to destroy pieces of a Stealth bomber in the basement—considering the Chinese government recently announced they had built a copycat version perhaps this angle should be investigated more thoroughly? Historian932 (talk) 18:40, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  More needed on Stealth bomber angle 

message: The address of the building actually struck is given in the article, as is the name of the building. The PRC embassy is likewise named on any map of Belgrade. 
Wikipedia:Common knowledge states that "geographic pieces of information easily verified by a nonspecialized map" do not need citations.Dduff442 (talk) 08:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: About the distance between reported target and the embassy

message: Why not? This infobox is useful and informative, and its not wrong. --WhiteWriterspeaks 19:27, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox 

message: I remember when this happened, and I never believed it was an accident.  Are there any credible sources that theorize that it might have been intentional, and with any explanation as to why?  Were the Chinese doing something that the US didn't like?Jonny Quick (talk) 09:23, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: One theory  was that wreckage of a shot-down B-2 Stealth bomber was stored there (a Serbian farmer later claimed to have found the wreckage and sold it, and China released their version of a stealth plane a few years ago [that was the story I heard *at the time*, which makes me believe it]).108.55.71.86 (talk) 21:16, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  On Purpose? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.usconsulate.org.hk/kosovo/statement.htm
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Just reading this through reveals that it's really quite a mess. Someone (or several someones) has been through and for almost every statement, they've simply added a contradiction, usually an anti-American one. So can I suggest that rather than merely creating chaos and confusion, those someones take a different approach, and write up their own alternate theories to see if they survive the editing process? It would make this so much more readable. Theonemacduff (talk) 09:14, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kind of a mess 

message: I've removed the paragraph in the timeline that suggested the bombing was intentional to protect F-117A. Searching the reference on Google Books for Stealth, and F117A in various forms shows only a Fox news reference that talks about the F117A shootdown but makes no claim about the bombing intention.
Recently, a researcher who interview key personnel, discovered that parts of F-117A shootdown 27 March 1999 were being held in the Chinese Embassy. And probably the bombing was a intentional form to prevent technology theft by the chinese government. However, mostly of the parts were already being shipped to China just a couple of days before the bombing. [6]
Costa, De Leon Petta Gomes da. Organized Crime and the Nation-State, Geopolitics and National Sovereignty, page 60, 2018. Retrieved 18 December 2018. https://www.routledge.com/Organized-Crime-and-the-Nation-State-Geopolitics-and-National-Sovereignty/Petta-Gomes-da-Costa/p/book/9781138387348
Sailfish2 (talk) 01:34, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  F-117A parts theory 

message: It's mentioned in various sources without the source necessarily taking any particular position on whether it's true or false. For example, in the BBC News article from 2019 the report is mentioned, and there's a specific hyperlink to it.
The governments of the United States and the United Kingdom denied that the bombing was deliberate, and as the BBC News article mentions, Pan Zhanlin, who was the Chinese ambassador at the time and who narrowly survived the attack, denied in a book written that the Chinese embassy had been used for rebroadcasting. For any number of different reasons a false report could have emerged from reputable publications.
But I think it's sufficiently relevant information on the bombing that it ought to be included in the lead. I think many Americans heard at the time that the bombing was an accident and many Chinese believed and still believe that it was deliberate. The fact that two reputable Western newspapers published a report that the bombing was actually deliberate seems to me like it's significant.
Jjjjjjjjjj (talk · contribs) 04:12, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whether the ''The Observer''/''Politiken'' report saying the bombing was deliberate should be in the lead or not 

message: It was in previous revisions of the page (e.g. 15:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Previous Discussion 

message: I find it odd that the article mentions the opinions of the Chinese public and their "outrage", as if they live in a free and open society that has free exchange and expression of information and opinion without fear of Chinese government retaliation, and outside Chinese government control. Denying the existence of censorship is a form of censorship, and is a violation of Wikipedia policy.72.181.112.54 (talk) 13:27, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: WP is not a political forum. And I find your claim that only people in liberal democracies are allowed to express outrage to be preposterous.--118.211.75.216 (talk) 17:46, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chinese opinions