RIGHTS-YUGOSLAVIA: Chinese Flee After Milosevic Fall

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, May 13 2002 (IPS) - Thousands of Chinese have fled Yugoslavia after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. Those who remain face racial attacks and harassment.

At least eight Chinese nationals have been killed in Yugoslavia over the past 12 months, according to official figures. Scores of others have been assaulted in Belgrade and in other parts of Serbia.

The Chinese have been caught in the rise and fall of former president Slobodan Milosevic. China developed close relations with Milosevic’s regime at the height of Yugoslavia’s isolation in the nineties. On the back of those ties an estimated 100,000 Chinese came to live in Yugoslavia between 1996 and 2000.

China’s opposition to the NATO air attacks of 1999 strengthened the ties. The relations peaked after the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was hit by NATO rockets in May 1999. Three Chinese nationals died in that attack.

Milosevic’s fall from power in October 2000 ended those relations between Yugoslavia and China — and the cosy days for the Chinese in Yugoslavia. Now no more than 5,000 remain, says Liu Fengdun, vice-president of the Association of Chinese in Yugoslavia. About 3,000 live in Serbia and the rest in Montenegro, he says.

The change after Milosevic’s fall was dramatic. Within the first six months of the new administration, the Chinese population shrank to less than 20,000, according to the Chinese association.

The relaxed residence rules under which the Chinese came were scrapped. They are asked now to renew residence and work permits every three months. Many of the Chinese have left for South Africa or for countries in Western Europe.

It is becoming progressively worse for those who remain. Liu Fengdun has written to President Vojislav Kostunica and Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic for help. “They need to be aware of our problems,” he says.

Predrag Simic, foreign policy advisor to President Kostunica has pointed out that “the Chinese are investing here, they are not asylum seekers or people on welfare.” But the Chinese feel welcomed neither by the government nor the people.

“It is clear that we are no longer wanted here,” says Hong Shen from the Association. “The golden era for the Chinese here seems to be over.”

The Chinese came to trade in cheap clothes and other goods. They paid low taxes, and were seen as privileged by many Serbs.

It is now a far from privileged life. Most of the Chinese in Belgrade live in small two-bedroom flats in the shabby Block 70. Its huge shopping mall is full of cheap Chinese goods. But business is not booming.

Many of the Serbs who live in the neighbourhood say the Chinese should go. “Bringing them here was a political decision of Milosevic,” says Dragovan Matic, a cafe owner in Block 70. “Times are changing and maybe our people need more work,” he says.

The fallout for the Chinese is “the consequence of the confusing message Milosevic’s regime sent for years,” says Biljana Kovacevic Vuco, head of the Yugoslav Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights. “On one hand, it instigated xenophobia against non-Serb nations in the Balkans. On the other, it tried to raise sympathies for a nation so different from Serbia. Impoverished and confused people now pick on the nearest targets — the Chinese.”