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

Quote :

"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. "

7/14/2005 10:37:38 PM

He is just over compensating

7/14/2005 10:53:11 PM

overseas people say the same thing about bush

7/14/2005 11:16:48 PM

crrraaaaazzzzzzeeee

7/14/2005 11:30:00 PM

i think i wanna have china's baby?

7/14/2005 11:31:16 PM

And they would probably be right.

7/14/2005 11:38:55 PM

Quote :

"Gen Zhu said his views did not represent official Chinese policy and he did not anticipate war with the US."

*phew*

7/15/2005 1:12:50 AM

And to think that US empowered China with manufacturing jobs and weapons to counter the Soviet influence in the region.

7/15/2005 1:17:46 AM

I like how they tacked that shit on the end

7/15/2005 3:06:32 AM

Quote :

"Gen Zhu said his views did not represent official Chinese policy and he did not anticipate war with the US"

Quote :

"We're going to seek a peaceful solution to this. We think that one is possible"

-condi rice

we're fucked

7/15/2005 6:14:49 AM

i guess in the battle of east vs west

tupac is about to get fucked

7/15/2005 8:45:51 AM

wtf.

Nuclear weapons.

Are we STILL having this discussion?

7/15/2005 8:57:20 AM

Dear China,

Back the fuck off.

Stop floating ming class subs into Japan's EEZ.

There's no oil on the Senkaku islands.

No one's scared of your semi-literate army.

<3,
Sonia

7/15/2005 9:05:26 AM

Quote :

"National Defence University"

7/15/2005 9:11:59 AM

Quote :

"No one's scared of your semi-literate army."

7/15/2005 9:12:51 AM

^^ not going to explain...

[Edited on July 15, 2005 at 9:15 AM. Reason : dfgsdfgsdfgsdfgsdgfsdfgsdfgsdf]

7/15/2005 9:15:35 AM

^thought it looked funny, if i was just being ignorant feel free to point it out.

7/15/2005 9:20:54 AM

OTHER COUNTRIES SPELL THINGS DIFFERENTLY?

NEVER

7/15/2005 9:29:58 AM

7/15/2005 9:53:44 AM

All the more reason to get Japan back into the swing of things. They've got an entrenched market-based democracy, there's no rationale for dissuading them from junking their constitutionally-required pacifism...

7/15/2005 10:25:02 AM

are these statements enough to entertain a trade embargo?

i mean, american steel is fueling the chinese economic boom.

7/15/2005 10:49:35 AM

Quote :

"american steel is fueling the chinese economic boom."

You're kidding, right? There's hardly any American steel production these days, and almost none of it goes to China. American consumer demand is driving the Chinese boom, not American industrial production.

7/15/2005 10:55:14 AM

all our scrap goes overseas.

7/15/2005 11:19:28 AM

US Senator, 1940:
A war in the Pacific is coming, it can no longer be avoided. And when it comes, the Japanese will be attacking us with ships made from American steel and fueled with American Petroleum. This is a threat we cannot allow, and must move quickly to halt shipments of US petroleum and steel to the Japanese Empire.

In a sense, by attempting to weaken the Japanese we forced them to wage war upon us. Might we not do that again with China?

7/15/2005 11:56:37 AM

^I dont know, ask Senator Schumer and Senator Graham...

7/15/2005 11:58:24 AM

And we all have this guy to thank for it

7/15/2005 12:17:09 PM

Actually it would be this guy:

7/15/2005 12:25:39 PM

Don't forget the Puppet-Master!

7/15/2005 10:30:00 PM

As 'W' would say.... BRING IT ON!!!

Who the hell does this slope think he is, threatening the greatest nation the world has ever seen???!!! We'll show 'em! We'll turn him and his countrymen into 1 billion hunks of well done steak!

7/15/2005 11:46:32 PM

nah, we don't mess with countries that can defend themselves.

7/15/2005 11:52:51 PM

does china not have history books? do they honestly not remember what we did to japan? a country who had actually participated in a war previously to fucking with us and had an experienced military.

7/16/2005 12:37:36 AM

you don't need experience when you have billions of brainwashed military men. Human wave, baby

7/16/2005 12:42:28 AM

numbers are nothing without brains, the russians were proof of that in WWI and when they tried to battle nepolean the first time when they were allied with austria and what is now czechoslovakia. nepolean was outnumbered 3 to 1 but he still fucking slaughtered them.

[Edited on July 16, 2005 at 1:08 AM. Reason : wait a minute... why the fuck am i posting in this section agian, i'm outta here.]

7/16/2005 12:50:44 AM

BECAUSE COMPARISONS FROM NAPOLEONIC WARS REALLY MAKE SENSE

hell, the right won't even allow liberals to draw comparisons to wars that were faught in the 1970s

AND YOU WANT TO BRING UP NAPOLEON?

7/16/2005 2:26:19 AM

China's going to try another Great Leap Forward and everyone will be too busy smelting steel to fight.

7/16/2005 5:24:14 AM

should we serioulsy be worried about a war with China?

7/16/2005 2:02:13 PM

not for a good while

I'd be more worried about an economic war than a nuclear one.

7/16/2005 2:16:58 PM

that's why i'm stockpiling cash in my basement

7/16/2005 3:28:14 PM

more like

thats why i'm stockpiling gas in my basement

7/16/2005 4:41:27 PM

^^I wouldn't be stockpiling american dollars

unless you need some toilet paper

7/16/2005 4:42:38 PM

I love the fact that unless you are Chinese you cannot invest normally in there stockmarket. The Chinese market is set for massive growth and they do not want some foreign investor coming in and buying up their companies on the cheap. Right now foreign investors are restricted to "class Z" shares (one level above shit).

7/16/2005 8:55:04 PM

lets all start learning chinese now, it will be much easier on our new leaders

7/16/2005 9:07:23 PM

This could be the imminent threat Iraq never posed to us.

7/17/2005 12:12:13 AM

I'm still going to eat at the Golden Dragon.

7/17/2005 12:42:35 AM

Quote :

"I love the fact that unless you are Chinese you cannot invest normally in there stockmarket."

I don't blame them for managing their balance of payments deficit. It's something I wish the US could do.

7/17/2005 1:39:58 AM

I dont know what an "economic war" is, but Im damn sure not worried about having one with a country whose monetary policy we control.

7/17/2005 2:05:02 AM

dont take away my chicken fried rice

7/17/2005 2:26:27 AM

I'd say it's a "cold war" economic situation now. Their economy is in our hands just as much as ours is in thiers. Sure if we devalue the dollar, it screws them over royally, but it screws us over as well. But if they call in our loans, sell off their dollars, or even halt investment, it once agian screws us both over.

7/17/2005 2:33:00 AM

We are not at all equal. China's exports are a far larger share of its overall GNP than us.

Yes, fucking everything up would cause a massive recession in the US, but it would devastate China.

BTW, the US has no mechanism of devaluing its currency beyond lowering interest rates. While this is effective, it pales in comparison to the direct investment of China.

The question is: If China wanted to devalue our currency and sold all its dollars, what would it sell them for? Whatever devaluing impact was done on the dollar would be tempered by the rabid rise in whatever it was buying with them.

For example, if China sold all its dollars for RNBs, all we would see is a rediculously high price for the RNB and an overall mild drop in the dollar.

Besides, China only has a few dozen billion dollars in Cash, everything else is held in Treasury Bonds which cannot be "called in" because they have mandatory mature dates on each one. All it can do is flood the secondary market which might inhibit our ability to borrow further money momentarily.

7/17/2005 6:31:55 PM

Quote :

"I don't blame them for managing their balance of payments deficit. It's something I wish the US could do."

agreed...

The Chinese are more concerned with some corporate raider coming and buying up there companies on the cheap regarding their stockmarket restrictions.

7/17/2005 10:16:27 PM