Little interest among Chinese students one year after NATO bombing
BEIJING, May 5 (AFP) -
For many students who took part in the violent anti-US protests after the NATO bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade anger has given way to study, job hunting and the dream of living abroad.
The atmosphere on the campus of Beijing's People's University during this week's MayDay holiday week was relaxed and students expressed little interest and almost no anger over the May 7, 1999 bombing.
"As far as I know there are no activities on our campus planned to commemorate the anniversary of the bombing," student He Beifang told AFP.
Students studying international affairs or foreign languages might have special discussion sessions, but few students were thinking about the bombing despite the tremendous anger they unleashed last year, he said.
"Of course we were very angry about it last year, but the US paid compensation to China and to the families of the victims, so right now I don't think many students are angry about it," said Wei, an English major.
"We still don't believe the US explanation that the bombing was a mistake, so it is still up to the US to give China a satisfactory explanation," she said.
In the aftermath of the bombing which killed three Chinese journalists, Chinese students erupted into four days of angry protests throughout China -- smashing windows at the US Embassy in Beijing and torching the US Consulate in Chengdu, Sichuan province.
Police largely declined to intervene as students rained stones, bottles and paint bombs on the US missions and chanted anti-American slogans.
Wei and He said they attended the huge demonstrations, but denied the protests only occured because the government allowed them to.
"Yes, the government and university leaders encouraged us to go down to protest at the US Embassy, but everyone was really angry so you can't say that it was only the government who organized the protests," Wei said.
The protests were the biggest in China since the six-week-long 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests which were crushed by the Chinese military.
Other students said the granting of permanent normal trade relationsto China by the US Congress in a vote later this month, would go a long way towards showing that the United States was not trying to contain China, but was willing to work with China.
"PNTR will show that the US wants to work with China and stop using power politics to interfere in China's internal affairs," said a law student from Hebei University who was visiting the People's University.
"A lot of students were happy to see the statements by Vice President (Al) Gore that supported PNTR and improved relations between China and the US," he said.
In a foreign policy speech on Monday, Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee in this year's elections, called China a "vital partner" and pledged to build stronger relations.
His statements were widely reported in the Chinese press, as were statements made Tuesday by President Bill Clinton which said failure to pass PNTR would be "very unwise and precarious" from a national security point of view.
With China's probable entry into the World Trade Organisation, most students looked forward to better ties with the West and many shied away from discussing politics.
"Students here are only concerned about finding good jobs after college, so we concentrate on our studies and pay little attention to politics," one student said.
"I would think that every college student in China studies English and many are hoping to go abroad to study," he said. "Study in the US is still the first choice."
The US Central Intelligence Agency took the blame for the NATO strike by saying out-dated maps resulted in laser guided bombs hitting the Chinese embassy instead of a nearby Yugoslav military depot.
China still insists the attack was deliberate.