I’m a bit surprised that you question whether the bombing of the Chinese was accidental. How would the US benefit from doing that? How could it be assured such an act wouldn’t unleash disproportionate retaliation? Snafus happen. This was one of them.
'According to senior military and intelligence sources in Europe and the US the Chinese embassy was removed from a prohibited targets list after Nato electronic intelligence (Elint) detected it sending army signals to Milosevic's forces.
...
Nato's apology was predicated on the excuse that the three missiles which landed in one corner of the embassy block were meant to be targeted at the Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement, the FDSP. But inquiries have revealed there never was a VJ directorate of supply and procurement at the site named by Tenet. The VJ office for supplies - which Tenet calls FDSP - is some 500 metres down the street from the address he gave. It was bombed later.
Moreover the CIA and other Nato intelligence agencies, such as Britain's MI6 and the code-breakers at GCHQ, would have listened in to communication traffic from the Chinese embassy as a matter of course since it moved to the site in 1996.'
All off-record sources so who knows, but I think enough to question whether there's not more going on.
And in any case, China in 1999 would never have retaliated against Nato!
It strikes me that, mutatis mutandis, Wang Jisi's 2008 analysis remains correct, or at least apposite. Neither the US nor China has any reasonable prospect of global hegemony. Since the conflict is no longer ideological, the fantasies of extremists and the ill-informed notwithstanding, each side seems now to be following a policy of regional hegemony: much on the Mearsheimer model.
In this China has been remarkably successful: Russia is effectively a client state; the prospects for an effective alliance involving India, Japan, Australia etc, seem very remote. The US is evidently pursuing a similar path of regional hegemony, though somewhat crudely under the current president.
Unless Europe can likewise establish itself as a regional hegemon, an unlikely prospect, self-interest suggests we must throw in our lot with one or other of the two 'leading powers'. We really cannot have it both ways.
There were no "Uyghur fighters" captured in Afghanistan. A transnational militant group kidnapped a group of Uyghur refugees/students from Pakistan and sold them to the Americans in Afghanistan as "foreign fighters." This is well-established.
You're right that they weren't literally captured 'in Afghanistan' so I've corrected that. But it isn't 'well-established' that they were merely refugees and students.
At least some of them were in Afghanistan to receive military training to fight against China. From the testimony of Huzaifa Parhat:
'At the camp, he received training on a Kalashnikov rifle and a pistol, which “consisted of weapon disassembly and cleaning,” Pet’r Br. 18 n. 22 (quoting CSRT Exhibit R3, at 2 (App.37))3; performed guard duty, see CSRT Exhibit R7, at 2 (App.52); and helped to build a house, see CSRT Decision, end. 3, at 6 (App.24). He sought the training, he said, only to fight the Chinese government. Id. end. 1, at 2 (App.12); id. end. 3, at 3-4 (App.21-22).'
Again, there is no evidence any were in "Afghanistan to receive military training to fight against China." First of all they were in Pakistan, second of all, as your source indicates, the ETIM does not even exist:
"no source document evidence was introduced to indicate ... that the Detainee had actually joined ETIM,"
Any testimony was also produced under torture and threats of extradition back to China and has little evidentiary value. You also assert they are "Islamic extremists" and "fighters" as if it is the same thing- these are two separate things that may or may not overlap. Uyghurs who turned military against China might have either nationalist or religious motivations, as well as personal grievances due to state persecution.
Also as anyone who has been in the tribal areas of Pakistan or Afghanistan can tell you, learning how to disassemble and clean a Kalashnikov is as part of everyday life as learning to make chai or tend a tandoor. It is not at all evidence of military training to fight China.
Probably some of them had some interest in training to eventually fight China, but this is very different from how you frame this as there being an active Uyghur militant group in Afghanistan that was fighting against the Americans or Chinese or whomever. There is still no evidence the ETIM ever actually existed.
Uyghurs going all the way to Afghanistan to learn how to make tea or to bake bread seems odd but hardly a prima facie threat to national security. Those same students travelling in order to operate weaponry not unreasonably draws the attention of security officials both in the US and China. Whether they owe allegiance to this or that terrorist organisation is a subsidiary matter.
great piece Cindy!
I’m a bit surprised that you question whether the bombing of the Chinese was accidental. How would the US benefit from doing that? How could it be assured such an act wouldn’t unleash disproportionate retaliation? Snafus happen. This was one of them.
The steel man case is set out here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/oct/17/balkans
'According to senior military and intelligence sources in Europe and the US the Chinese embassy was removed from a prohibited targets list after Nato electronic intelligence (Elint) detected it sending army signals to Milosevic's forces.
...
Nato's apology was predicated on the excuse that the three missiles which landed in one corner of the embassy block were meant to be targeted at the Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement, the FDSP. But inquiries have revealed there never was a VJ directorate of supply and procurement at the site named by Tenet. The VJ office for supplies - which Tenet calls FDSP - is some 500 metres down the street from the address he gave. It was bombed later.
Moreover the CIA and other Nato intelligence agencies, such as Britain's MI6 and the code-breakers at GCHQ, would have listened in to communication traffic from the Chinese embassy as a matter of course since it moved to the site in 1996.'
All off-record sources so who knows, but I think enough to question whether there's not more going on.
And in any case, China in 1999 would never have retaliated against Nato!
It strikes me that, mutatis mutandis, Wang Jisi's 2008 analysis remains correct, or at least apposite. Neither the US nor China has any reasonable prospect of global hegemony. Since the conflict is no longer ideological, the fantasies of extremists and the ill-informed notwithstanding, each side seems now to be following a policy of regional hegemony: much on the Mearsheimer model.
In this China has been remarkably successful: Russia is effectively a client state; the prospects for an effective alliance involving India, Japan, Australia etc, seem very remote. The US is evidently pursuing a similar path of regional hegemony, though somewhat crudely under the current president.
Unless Europe can likewise establish itself as a regional hegemon, an unlikely prospect, self-interest suggests we must throw in our lot with one or other of the two 'leading powers'. We really cannot have it both ways.
There were no "Uyghur fighters" captured in Afghanistan. A transnational militant group kidnapped a group of Uyghur refugees/students from Pakistan and sold them to the Americans in Afghanistan as "foreign fighters." This is well-established.
You're right that they weren't literally captured 'in Afghanistan' so I've corrected that. But it isn't 'well-established' that they were merely refugees and students.
At least some of them were in Afghanistan to receive military training to fight against China. From the testimony of Huzaifa Parhat:
'At the camp, he received training on a Kalashnikov rifle and a pistol, which “consisted of weapon disassembly and cleaning,” Pet’r Br. 18 n. 22 (quoting CSRT Exhibit R3, at 2 (App.37))3; performed guard duty, see CSRT Exhibit R7, at 2 (App.52); and helped to build a house, see CSRT Decision, end. 3, at 6 (App.24). He sought the training, he said, only to fight the Chinese government. Id. end. 1, at 2 (App.12); id. end. 3, at 3-4 (App.21-22).'
https://openjurist.org/532/f3d/834/parhat-v-gates
Again, there is no evidence any were in "Afghanistan to receive military training to fight against China." First of all they were in Pakistan, second of all, as your source indicates, the ETIM does not even exist:
"no source document evidence was introduced to indicate ... that the Detainee had actually joined ETIM,"
Any testimony was also produced under torture and threats of extradition back to China and has little evidentiary value. You also assert they are "Islamic extremists" and "fighters" as if it is the same thing- these are two separate things that may or may not overlap. Uyghurs who turned military against China might have either nationalist or religious motivations, as well as personal grievances due to state persecution.
Also as anyone who has been in the tribal areas of Pakistan or Afghanistan can tell you, learning how to disassemble and clean a Kalashnikov is as part of everyday life as learning to make chai or tend a tandoor. It is not at all evidence of military training to fight China.
Probably some of them had some interest in training to eventually fight China, but this is very different from how you frame this as there being an active Uyghur militant group in Afghanistan that was fighting against the Americans or Chinese or whomever. There is still no evidence the ETIM ever actually existed.
Uyghurs going all the way to Afghanistan to learn how to make tea or to bake bread seems odd but hardly a prima facie threat to national security. Those same students travelling in order to operate weaponry not unreasonably draws the attention of security officials both in the US and China. Whether they owe allegiance to this or that terrorist organisation is a subsidiary matter.