CHINA CUTS OFF CONTACTS WITH U.S.; OFFICIALS, CITIZENS PROTEST BOMBING.

Byline: Renee Schoof Associated Press 

As thousands of Chinese held a third day of anti-NATO protests in Beijing, China announced Monday it was breaking off diplomatic contacts with Washington on human rights and arms control to protest NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.

China also suspended contacts on weapons proliferation and international security, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao.

The areas suspended cover a wide range of issues, including U.S. concerns that China has provided nuclear weapons or missile technology to Pakistan, Iran or other countries.

China's Ambassador to the United States, Li Zhaoxing, said Sunday that his government would not accept American attempts to ``whitewash the atrocity as a mistake.''

Li called for a full investigation into the Friday night bombing, saying, ``Those who commit the crime should know what to do and how to investigate. They should not shirk their responsibilities,'' he said on ``ABC This Week.''

The protests outside the U.S. and British embassies left U.S. Ambassador James Sasser and other American officials trapped inside an embassy compound surrounded by hundreds of police wearing riot helmets. Some U.S. diplomats were able to leave an office building about three blocks away during a lull Monday, and returned to their homes in Beijing.

On Sunday, thousands thronged past the compounds, smashing windows at the U.S. mission with stones and splattering its walls with paint. The protests have been the biggest public demonstrations in China since the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy marches 10 years ago.

NATO and the United States have said the embassy attack was accidental and have expressed deep regret.

Protesters marched along a police-guarded route that took them past the embassies. Police blocked nearby streets and ordered foreign reporters away from corners where they could see the embassy.

``The Chinese people have flown into furies'' over the attack on the Belgrade embassy, the People's Daily, the main paper of the ruling Communist Party, said in a Monday commentary.

``If anybody thinks he can intimidate the Chinese through the use of force, he will find himself completely wrong,'' it said.

During Sunday's protests, many in Beijing carried signs with four Chinese characters that mean ``a debt of blood must be repaid in blood.'' Protesters attacked the British and Albanian missions and demonstrated at U.S. consulates elsewhere in the country.

Thousands of police kept watch Sunday, the second day of the government-sanctioned protest, but did not try to stop the rock-throwing.

The Chinese government put the number of demonstrators Sunday at 20,000, but the constant stream made it difficult to count.

``We are essentially hostages of the embassy at the present time now. We've been here 48 hours without being able to leave,'' Sasser told AP Network News by telephone.

He said protesters had thrown a gasoline bomb through a window and that the government had encouraged the demonstrations. Protesters also smashed up paving stones to throw at embassy buildings.

``The danger is that this could spin out of control,'' Sasser said.

The demonstrations were dominated by strongly nationalistic and anti-American rhetoric. Profanity and swastikas appeared on many protesters' signs about the United States and President Clinton.

``Down with the United States!'' demonstrators chanted until they were hoarse. ``Protect the fatherland's sovereignty!''

Demonstrators also threw rocks at the British and Albanian embassies and gathered at the German Embassy in another diplomatic neighborhood.

An Albanian diplomat, Tonin Beci, said by telephone that his embassy had received threatening phone calls from people who claimed Albania had sided with NATO against Yugoslavia.

Demonstrators jumped over the Albanian embassy's wall for brief intrusions on the grounds and threw rocks from the street, Beci said. Some rocks hit Albanian officials, he said.

Sasser and his staff expressed ``profound sorrow'' over the bombing in the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, and condolences to families of the victims, an embassy statement said.

Three people were killed. More than 20 were injured, six seriously, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Neither Sasser's statement nor Clinton's expression of regret over what he called a ``tragic mistake'' were reported by China's state-controlled news media.

Chinese media also have not reported the Serb attacks on ethnic Albanians in Yugoslavia's Kosovo province that NATO airstrikes were intended to stop. China has blamed NATO for creating the refugee crisis.

Many protesters believed the Chinese Embassy was deliberately targeted.

``It infuriates us that innocent Chinese were killed,'' said 26-year-old Diana Qu, a worker in a foreign-owned company who spoke Sunday while waiting for police to let her and 1,000 others take their turn protesting in front of the embassy.

Chinese custom makes clear distinctions between Chinese and foreigners, who in Chinese are literally called ``outside people.'' But during the demonstration, the distinction often turned hostile, with people yelling profanities at non-Chinese they assumed were Americans.

U.S. officials protested to the Chinese government that embassy security was inadequate, in spite of cordons of police in riot gear trying to keep the crowds back from the iron gates around the embassy buildings.

Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao appealed for restraint in a nationwide television broadcast Sunday evening. He said the government supports ``legal protest activities'' but warned people to be vigilant against troublemakers.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo: (1) Chinese military policemen stuggle to control the crowd at the gate of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

Chien-Min Chung

(2 -- color) Li Zhaoxing

Chinese ambassador