Monitor: World opinion on Nato's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade

All the News of the World

IT IS a mystery how the combined intelligence of the world's strongest military alliance could have mistaken a diplomatic complex for a government building. Beijing is milking the mishap for what it is worth: it is not often that China takes the moral high ground on international law. But it is also high time that the UN elbowed its way onto the diplomatic stage. At a press conference, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan voiced the hope that certain countries would learn a lesson from this military morass. He didn't name the culprits, and the journalists didn't need to ask.

The Nation, Thailand

THE BOMBING is worse than just an example of slipshod planning and execution. Not only has the world's attention been shifted from Milosevic's mass graves and expulsions, it is now focused on Clinton's apologies and frenzied mobs in Beijing holding US diplomats hostage in their own embassy. And it is all Clinton's fault.

New York Post, US

THE CHINESE and their government have every right to be angry over the bombing. It should bring home the need to take diplomatic and defensive action with other countries to contain Nato's strategy of global domination. Unfortunately, there is no country which can take on Nato singly in the unipolar post-Cold War world. Unless Russia, India and China co-ordinate their moves vis-a-vis Nato, its expansionism will go unchecked.

The Pioneer, India

GIVEN THE volume of weaponry rained on Serb targets, the hits against innocents, although regrettable, have been astoundingly few. Intensified tensions with China now add a new dimension of difficulty for the US in its efforts to strengthen democratic and market-based institutions in Russia and China. The time frame for such advances now becomes indefinite. Yet the tyrannical thug reigning over the rubble in Belgrade hopes to capitalize on this latest version of the law of unintended consequences and slip away with his vile aspirations intact.

Roanoke Times, US