By the end of the week, the physical fury had passed. Just days after the anti-American riots exploded, touched off by NATO’s bombing of China’s embassy in Belgrade that killed three journalists, Marines began clearing a path through knee-deep debris at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. American companies shelved their evacuation plans, American schools resumed classes–and in Chengdu, impatient callers asked when the U.S. visa section would reopen. “It’s unreal,” said a dazed U.S. official. But what happened was all too real. Chinese anger was understandable in light of NATO’s shocking blunder in Belgrade, and the rioting evoked dark memories of periods in China’s past when nationalistic fervor had boiled into destructive chaos. Even after the bricks stopped flying, there remained a sense that unpredictable forces had been unleashed. Many Chinese assumed that the United States had deliberately bombed their embassy, and in the streets of Beijing an uncompromising student slogan from the Tiananmen days was back: “Blood for blood.” The twist was that this time, for a stormy few days, the blood in demand was American.
At the Central Academy of Fine Arts, students produced a takeoff on Picasso’s “Guernica,” with President Clinton’s face overseeing the carnage of war. Others came up with satirical posters declaring CLINTON, WE’RE NOT MONICA, and CLINTON: MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR. Students from several universities launched a pre-dawn march toward the U.S. Embassy, refusing government offers of transportation. “We wanted to walk all the way,” said one student, “just as students did in 1989 to show their sincerity.” In an ironic replay of the antigovernment demonstrations of 1989, this year’s anti-American protesters also took a route near Tiananmen Square–and also were given water and encouragement from bystanders along the way.
China’s media stoked the anger by delaying news of the U.S. apology for two days. While Americans deplored the attack against their diplomats, Chinese saw only the carnage at their own embassy. “Chinese cannot be bullied anymore,” said one 23-year-old student from Beijing Normal University. The authorities are acutely aware of the danger that nationalist furies can boil over, as they did during the May Fourth Movement of 1919, when anti-foreign demonstrators turned violently against the Chinese government after it made territorial concessions to Japan under the Treaty of Versailles. Last week party leaders, who themselves felt intense outrage at the embassy bombing, realized that they must not let the reaction get out of hand. During a strategy session at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound, the Politburo recognized a practical reality: that China “cannot afford a total rupture in ties with the U.S.,” as one Chinese source put it.
Beijing leaders quickly seized control of the demonstrations, allowing protesters to let off steam–but not actually to overrun U.S. installations. The government provided permits and buses for the Beijing demonstrators, including workers as well as students. Officials put up metal signs pointing out the “procession route” in front of the embassy, and some policemen helpfully broke paving blocks into fist-sized chunks suitable for smashing windows.
In Beijing and elsewhere, riot police managed to bend before the angry demonstrators without breaking. Sometimes it was a close call. In Chengdu, as the mob rammed the door at the U.S. Mission, a dozen Americans trapped inside desperately called for police to enter the compound and quell the rioters. The authorities “said they needed an official letter because it was U.S. government property,” recalled an American. Amid the flames and fury, the Americans scrambled to find paper and the consulate’s official seal. After four longhand drafts, the Chinese finally accepted the appeal; police then marched in and dispersed the demonstrators.
Attacks against American business interests in China were mostly symbolic. Twenty of the country’s 320 Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets were attacked; only one was seriously damaged. In Shanghai, a window was broken at TGI Friday’s. Outside a popular McDonald’s outlet in Beijing, protesters simply urged “Please don’t eat American food,” and most passersby obliged. Boeing brought staffers from remote regions to Beijing, which has an international airport, but then decided against evacuating any employees.
Officials generally went out of their way to assure foreign diplomats and investors of their safety. In Beijing, a Communist Party official materialized at the door of a Fortune 500 company manager during the heat of the unrest. “If you have any problems,” the commissar reportedly told the American, “just call me.” In cosmopolitan Shanghai, Mayor Xu Kuangdi invited representatives of U.S. multinationals to the offices of General Motors, the city’s biggest foreign investor. “He told people to try and relax,” recalled one attendee. “He said it was springtime, and we could go golfing or to the Grand Theater to see the ballet.” A few mild demonstrations and a bomb threat disrupted business in Shanghai, but life went on. While U.S. Ambassador James Sasser was under siege in his Beijing embassy, the U.S. consul general in Shanghai, Ray Burghardt, was out on Sunday playing golf with businessmen.
An optimist would see signs that the larger U.S.-Chinese partnership might be quickly repaired. In a conciliatory phone conversation, Presidents Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin discussed reopening talks on admitting China to the World Trade Organization. So far, despite all the charges of U.S. “hegemonism,” Beijing has not definitively scrapped Prime Minister Zhu Rongji’s offer to throw open China’s markets to more Western investors. China also toughened its line on Kosovo, refusing to support an international settlement as long as NATO bombs are falling. Still, China might refrain from vetoing any peace plan in the U.N. Security Council. Late in the week, Beijing even clarified its decision to suspend military ties with the United States: the suspension may be lifted next month. In all, said a senior administration official in Washington, “What Jiang is doing is a positive sign.”
All the same, Jiang was riding a tiger. In Beijing, the hawks had the floor–the protectionist ministries, the party conservatives, the generals. The lesson of Kosovo, wrote Prof. Zhang Zhaozhong of China’s National Defense University, is that countries like the United States “may not require a good reason to start a war in the 21st century.” In Jiang’s own speeches to the home audience, he echoed the nationalistic slogans shouted by students. Jiang praised the anti-American demonstrations as a sign of China’s “great patriotism and cohesive force,” and he proclaimed that “the People’s Republic of China can never be bullied.”
In a way, the disaster came at a convenient time for the hard-liners. With less than a month remaining before the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, Beijing had been busy intimidating and rounding up the usual pro-democracy suspects–even asking rock bands to rewrite provocative lyrics. In the circumstances, the bombs of Belgrade came as a useful distraction, channeling the rage of students and unemployed workers toward a foreign enemy. “Clinton just delivered to the Chinese a month of free sailing and stability ahead of June 4,” said a Chinese consultant. “The bombing was a huge gift to the Chinese government.”
There may be more such unpleasant gifts. To Beijing’s alarm, Washington recently has tightened its strategic ties to Tokyo and is studying a potential theater-missile defense for the Japanese (who for now are worried about North Korean missiles, not Chinese). Washington also has agreed to sell advanced radars to Taiwan, which Beijing takes as a provocative signal that the United States might someday try to include the disputed island under its regional defense umbrella. Last week’s rock-flinging in Chinese cities was nothing compared with the potential damage of a Sino-American showdown over Taiwan. The demonstrations have been contained for now, but they have stirred up the embers of Chinese nationalism–and made deeper confrontations more possible.
Since Clinton’s generally friendly visit to China last June, relations between the two powers have turned sour.
