Top Chinese general warns US over attack

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Top Chinese general

warns US over attack

By Alexandra Harney in Beijing

and Demetri Sevastopulo and Edward Alden in Washington

Published: July 14

2005 21:59 |

Last updated: July 15 2005 00:03

 

China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation

over Taiwan, a Chinese general said on Thursday.

“If the Americans draw their missiles and

position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we

will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” said General Zhu Chenghu.

Gen Zhu was speaking at a function for foreign journalists organised,

in part, by the Chinese government. He added that China's definition of its

territory included warships and aircraft.

“If the Americans are determined to interfere [then]

we will be determined to respond,” said Gen Zhu, who is also a professor

at China's National Defence University.

“We . . . will prepare ourselves for the destruction

of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be

prepared that hundreds . . . of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”

Gen Zhu is a self-acknowledged “hawk” who has

warned that China could strike the US with long-range missiles. But his threat to use nuclear weapons

in a conflict over Taiwan is the most specific by a senior Chinese official in nearly a

decade.

However, some US-based China experts cautioned that

Gen Zhu probably did not represent the mainstream People's Liberation Army

view.

“He is running way beyond his brief on what China might do in relation to

the US if push comes to shove,” said one expert with knowledge of

Gen Zhu. “Nobody who is cleared for information on Chinese war scenarios

is going to talk like this,” he added.

Gen Zhu's comments come as the Pentagon prepares to brief

Congress next Monday on its annual report on the Chinese military, which is

expected to take a harder line than previous years. They are also likely to

fuel the mounting anti-China sentiment on Capitol Hill.

In recent months, a string of US officials, including

Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, have raised concerns about China's military rise. The

Pentagon on Thursday declined to comment on “hypothetical

scenarios”.

Rick Fisher, a former senior US congressional official

and an authority on the Chinese military, said the specific nature of the

threat “is a new addition to China's public discourse”. China's official doctrine has

called for no first use of nuclear weapons since its first atomic test in 1964.

But Gen Zhu is not the first Chinese official to refer to the possibility of

using such weapons first in a conflict over Taiwan.

Chas Freeman, a former US assistant secretary of defence,

said in 1996 that a PLA official had told him China could respond in kind to

a nuclear strike by the US in the event of a conflict with Taiwan. The official is

believed to have been Xiong Guangkai, now the PLA's deputy chief of general

staff.

Gen Zhu said his views did not represent official Chinese

policy and he did not anticipate war with the US.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/28cfe55a-f4a7-11d9-9dd1-00000e2511c8.html

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