BEIJING, May 26 (AFP) - The publication of a US Congressional report accusing China of stealing nuclear secrets is likely to further fuel anger towards the West in China, where people are still stunned by NATO's bombing of its Belgrade embassy. The investigative panel led by Republican Representative Christopher Cox on Tuesday accused China of stealing secrets to every key American nuclear warhead made since the 1970s to update its own arsenal, and passing data to US foes. It comes at a time when anti-western feeling is running high in China, fuelled by pictures of the shattered embassy buildings and in-depth coverage of the grief surrounding the deaths of three journalists. How the West treats China has long been a major domestic policy issue for China's leaders -- elected or not. "Since the first war between China and a western power in 1840, the objective of the Chinese leadership has always been to make China stronger to stand up to the West," Professor Mee Nan-Shong of the Chinese University in Hong Kong's department of government told AFP. "Anti-foreign sentiment goes hand-in-hand with a legitimacy problem" for the government, Mee said, citing a recent speech by President Jiang Zemin in which he called for China to concentrate on getting stronger. Jiang's calls for students to study hard and workers to strive hard put an end to three days of angry demonstrations outside US and other NATO missions across China. While the apologies of President Bill Clinton and other NATO leaders stopped the hail of rocks over the walls of the embassy compounds, it became clear in the days that followed the protests that most Chinese believe the attack was deliberate. "The demonstrations revealed a gap in perception which works both ways," commented a Western diplomat in Beijing. Both Western and Chinese officials say the fresh accusations presented in Tuesday's Cox report will only serve to widen that gap. "This kind of report is surely aimed at poisoning the relations between the two countries," foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao told a news conference Tuesday. "The intention of this report is to spread China threat theory and to whip up anti-China sentiments and to deflect people's attention" from the Belgrade embassy bombing," Zhu said. Some foreign diplomats lamented an apparent need for some kind of enemy on the part of some US politicians. "This (report) will just exacerbate the lack of understanding," one Western analyst commented. But other analysts said the spying row was a side issue in Sino-US ties compared with the way in which NATO decides to handle its response to China's demands for an investigation into the attack, which NATO has blamed on outdated maps. China has recently hinted at growing impatience, calling for an explanation "to satisfy the Chinese people" and reserving the right to take further action. The publication of the Cox report is the latest chapter in a series of blows to the Sino-US relationship since the euphoria surrounding Clinton's visit to China last June. Wrangling over human rights, Taiwan, Kosovo and delicate negotiations on China's bid to join the World Trade Organisation have all taken their toll in the months since Clinton's trip.  