U.S. Protests China’s ‘Premeditated’ Attack on Envoys’ Apartments

In an official move likely to further strain Washington’s relations with China’s new hard-line leadership, the U.S. Embassy here filed an angry protest with the Chinese government Monday, charging that People’s Liberation Army troops deliberately targeted the apartments of American diplomats June 7 in a “premeditated” machine-gun attack on a diplomatic apartment complex in downtown Beijing.

The formal protest came a day after the embassy released a two-page report with the findings of an investigation into the incident. No one was injured in the shooting, which occurred four days after the brutal army crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in central Beijing, but it touched off panic in the diplomatic community that led to mass evacuations of Americans and other nationals from China last month.

The report, which indicated that the attack on the high-rise apartment building in one of the city’s main diplomatic enclaves had been planned as early as the afternoon before, contained no speculation on the motives behind the shooting, which the Chinese leadership said was merely an operation to track down and arrest a sniper.

Scare Tactic?

But independent analysts and a diplomat who asked not to be identified said the assault appeared to be a scare tactic aimed at frightening the Americans into giving up prominent dissident Fang Lizhi, an astrophysicist and an ideological leader of the protest movement, who had been allowed to take refuge in the embassy compound the day before.

Fang and his wife, Li Shuxian, also wanted as a protest leader, remain in the compound, which is surrounded by a contingent of Chinese security agents. And senior party officials have taken every opportunity to criticize Washington for harboring a man they consider a “counterrevolutionary” and criminal.

Since the violent June 3-4 crackdown on political dissent, the Bush Administration has banned military sales to China, suspended military and high-level diplomatic meetings and promised to work against the granting of new loans to China by international lending institutions such as the World Bank.

Those sanctions and the continuing harboring of Fang have drawn loud criticism from China’s new, conservative leadership, which is desperately trying to convince the world that China’s economy remains open to the outside world despite the political repression.

Self-Defense Claimed

China’s leadership offered no official comment on the U.S. protest Monday. But the official New China News Agency, reporting the protest, said the allegations of a deliberate plan to fire into the apartment complex were a lie and that the soldiers were firing in self-defense after snipers began firing at them from both sides of the street.

“Under such circumstance, they certainly have the right to fire in self-defense at the direction from where the snipers’ shots came,” the agency said. It said one soldier died and two were wounded by snipers.

There also was no official confirmation Monday of press reports that Chinese security police had arrested a Taiwanese journalist outside his hotel in Beijing after he had secretly interviewed student leader Wang Dan.

Wang is one of the 21 most-wanted student leaders, ranking near the top of the list issued by the government after it began its crackdown and mass arrests of dissidents.

Instead, Monday night’s national news on state-run television focused on the party’s national security chief presenting to the ongoing session of China’s rubber-stamp legislature a strict new law regulating public demonstrations, and on a meeting between hard-line Premier Li Peng and an unofficial Japanese delegation.

Appeal to Business

During the meeting, Li repeated the appeal for outside business interests to continue doing business with China, as well as the party leadership’s line that last month’s crackdown will have no effect on China’s economic liberalization and openness. He specifically appealed to the Japanese to continue their investments in China.

The new draft law on demonstrations would outlaw any demonstrations that “go against the basic principles of the constitution, or against the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party or the socialist system.”

Any demonstrations “advocating the split of the motherland or undermining national unity” would also be banned, and organizers of rallies would be required to obtain permits from police and to register the names of participants.

The rules virtually guarantee that the only demonstrations permitted would be those whose aims are officially endorsed by the Communist Party.

Monday’s note of protest was delivered by U.S. Embassy Charge d’Affaires Raymond Burghardt to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The embassy had protested in a general way within a few days of the shooting, but that protest lacked the detail and allegations of premeditation contained in Monday’s report, the result of a three-week investigation by U.S. military analysts.

Staged Incident?

Monday’s embassy report took pains to deny China’s official version. Acknowledging that the security police did escort a suspect from the Jianguomenwai housing complex, the report stated, “observers said that the incident appeared to be staged, since the ‘sniper’ did not seem distressed nor did the (army) appear to be using expected force during the arrest.”

The report stated that the embassy’s charge of premeditation was based on investigators’ findings that on the afternoon of June 6, more than 12 hours before the shooting started, the army ordered the evacuation of all foreigners in an office building across the street from the diplomatic high-rise.

As he was leaving the office building that afternoon, the report stated, one American said he noticed soldiers moving into positions in an adjacent, new office tower that is directly across from the diplomatic high-rise.

When the shooting started after 10 a.m. the following morning, residents of the diplomatic complex saw machine-gun fire coming directly at them from the unoccupied building, as well as ground fire coming up at them from soldiers in the street.

‘18 Incoming Rounds’

The embassy report stated: “One American diplomat’s apartment, upon examination, was found to have several rounds which came directly across from the building adjacent to (the occupied office building), not ground fire from the street. In addition, attache personnel from several other countries, including two defense attaches, also received . . . direct fire from the building. One defense attache’s apartment took 18 incoming rounds.

“There is no doubt, in this embassy’s opinion, that certain apartments were deliberately targeted by the People’s Liberation Army,” the U.S. report concluded. “There also is no question that some of the hits sustained by the apartments resulted from direct fire originating from the building” across the street.

In all, the report said, the apartments of 11 Americans were hit by gunfire.