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May 12, 1999
Web posted at: 8:23 a.m. EDT (1223 GMT)

In this story: Protests ease Apologies not accepted RELATED STORIES, SITES

BEIJING (CNN) -- The remains of three Chinese journalists killed when NATO missiles struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade arrived home in Beijing Wednesday.

Flag-waving children, factory workers and soldiers lined the airport for a solemn welcoming ceremony for the three who were killed and 20 others who were wounded in the weekend attack.

Weeping family members, carrying pictures of their loved ones and urns bearing their ashes, slowly got off the plane, walking down a red-carpeted stairwell to the airport's tarmac. A special Air China flight brought them from the Yugoslav capital.

Vice President Hu Jintao was on hand to offer his respects on behalf of the Chinese leadership.

"There was an enormous motorcade, several dozen cars, which then wound its way from the airport through the city where there is still very, very intense anger over the NATO bombing and the deaths that were caused by it," CNN's Mike Chinoy said, reporting from Beijing.

The bombing killed Shao Yunhuan, 48, of the state-run Xinhua News Agency, and Xu Xinghu, 29, and his wife, Zhu Ying, 27, both with the national newspaper Guangming Daily.

Protests ease

The NATO attack early Saturday prompted thousands of demonstrators to protest outside U.S. and British embassies and consulates in the days immediately afterward, with many hurling chunks of concrete, rocks, bricks and tomatoes at the buildings.

The streets were calm Wednesday. Flags at the U.S. and British embassies in Beijing and consulates around China flew at half-staff in a sign of respect.

James Sasser, the U.S. ambassador to China who had remained inside the embassy since the protests began, was escorted by several staff members from the heavily damaged building.

Sasser walked a block and a half to a guarded complex of apartments housing diplomats and international journalists. Beijing police protect the walled compound, which is off-limits to Chinese without permits to visit.

Chinese state-run media remained heavily anti-NATO and anti-American. An editorial in the Communist Party newspaper, The People's Daily, called NATO a "threat to world peace and security."

Morning television showed interviews with Chinese students talking about how disillusioned they are with the United States, including one student who said, "The U.S. talks a lot about human rights but now I believe they are hypocritical."

Apologies not accepted

On Tuesday, order was mostly restored to Beijing's embassy district and, for the first time since the weekend bombing, Chinese state-run media reported U.S. government and NATO apologies.

But Beijing officials insisted a simple "I'm sorry" was not enough and that those responsible be punished.

"We demand that U.S.-led NATO take effective actions to positively react to the solemn demands of the Chinese side," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said.

Beijing also rejected Western assertions that the Chinese government is backing the protests.

"The bombing itself, the killing itself, are enough to arouse people's feelings," said Liu Jiang of the Xinhua News Agency. "The Chinese students just are very, very patriotic. They love their country."

NATO said outdated intelligence information resulted in NATO missiles targeting the wrong building, leading to the bombing of the Chinese Embassy. NATO said it believed the building was a Yugoslav army supply facility.

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