The New York Times

Friday, June 11, 1999

China Claims Credit for Kosovo Deal

By The Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) -- China, which vehemently opposed NATO airstrikes since they began, heaped more scorn on the alliance today and claimed credit for leading the world to a peace agreement for the Kosovo crisis.

Beijing argued that sovereignty is more important than human rights. In its opposition lay a deep-seated fear that NATO had set a precedent for armed intervention without U.N. approval.

China has two restive minority regions -- Tibet and Xinjiang -- and an unresolved civil war with Taiwan.

``This kind of taking so-called `protecting human rights' as the excuse to fight a war in reality created the greatest humanitarian disaster since World War II and seriously harmed the Balkans' and the world's peace and stability,'' the People's Daily, the newspaper of the Communist Party, said in a front-page editorial.

China opposed the airstrikes from their start on March 24, a position that hardened after NATO bombed its embassy in Belgrade on May 7. The strikes were suspended Thursday after a Serb pullout from Kosovo began.

The People's Daily commentary claimed China's ``principled position'' demanding peace forced NATO nations and others to craft the plan that finally ended the conflict.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhang Qiyue, in a statement carried by the Xinhua News Agency, said late Thursday that the strikes ``harmed the U.N. Security Council's authority and created a very dangerous precedent in the history of international relations.''

China was the only country that abstained when the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution on the Kosovo peace plan Thursday. China objected that the council did not restrict the use of military force to implement the agreement.