THE RISING SEA DRAGON IN ASIA
As to the statement;
"The Three Gorges Dam will not collapse and cannot be destroyed," Liu said.
I hope he and the Chinese never push us to the point of finding how terribly wrong he is.
Posted on 06/17/2004 9:00:47 AM PDT by demlosers
Beijing - A top Chinese general on Wednesday called the United States "a whore" for suggesting that Taiwan try to destroy the Three Gorges Dam, while maintaining that it could never be hit by Taipei's conventional arms.
Lieutenant General Liu Yuan, the son of China's formerly deposed president Liu Shaoqi, slammed the Pentagon for suggesting that Taiwan was preparing an attack on the massive hydro-electric project as a counter measure to growing mainland forces aimed at retaking the island democracy.
"Some people who say they support democracy, wave the flag of human rights and shout about fighting terrorism, are actually a bunch of provocateurs, inciting nationalism and purposely and shamelessly provoking revenge without regard to consequences," he said in a front page editorial in the China Youth Daily.
"It is very clear, they are whores, masquerading as gentleman, and are willing to go farther than (al-Qaeda leader Osama) bin Laden."
The stinging rebuke comes a day after Taiwan said it had tested two US-made Patriot anti-missile missiles, as tensions across the Taiwan Straits grow following the re-election of pro-independence President Chen Shui-bian.
Statements made by Taiwan military officials on a potential attack on the $25bn dam, coupled with the Pentagon's recent annual assessment on China's military capability, has spurred the mainland to better prepare for the "terrorism of Taiwan independence forces," Liu said.
"The Three Gorges Dam will not collapse and cannot be destroyed," Liu said.
"To begin with, Taiwan does not have nuclear weapons."
Any attack on the dam "will provoke retaliation that will 'blot out the sky and cover up the earth'," he said.
Edited by Anthea Jonathan
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Me no love him long time.
Please provide objective evidence of exactly what any US official said about the Three Gorges Dam. This article has none.
As to the statement;
"The Three Gorges Dam will not collapse and cannot be destroyed," Liu said.
I hope he and the Chinese never push us to the point of finding how terribly wrong he is.
If the Reds do not attack Taiwan, then they have nothing to worry about.
China had to make a decision whether to invade Taiwan under clinton or whether to wait until they were really ready to invade sometime after.
Seems like they made the wrong choice. Clinton would have given them Taiwan with a purple ribbon around it.
I don't quite get the connection. Whores aren't usually known for giving good advice.
Of course all of this is moot anyway, in the long run. In about ten million years, the island of Formosa will be pushed into the mainland by plate tectonics.
TinFoil-
If the reports of the engineering snafus of the Three Gorges are correct, any collapse of the dam due to engineering and construction flaws could well be a nice "Reichstag Fire" scenario for the Chinese Fascists.
This Chinese general, Liu Yuan, is evidently a pretty senior military leader. He gets quoted a lot, and has apparently written a lot as well. He is either mainstream in his thinking, or he's their 'General Ripper'.
If China wants to maintain good relations, they need to 'retire' this guy. If they don't, you can bet China will move on Taiwan.
Yes they do. Many in China are worried about the quality of their construction materials and if the engineering is sufficient to withstand earthquakes, or even the amount of water the dam is supposed to hold back.
But...I would be much more likely to discount it on economic impact.
The Straits Times June 16/2004
U.S. helps Taiwan build credible deterrence
by Ching Cheong
Hong Kong: By suggesting to Taiwan to target China's Three Gorges Dam in the event of a Chinese attack, the United States is, effectively, helping the renegade province to develop a credible deterrence capability.
Designed to hold 39.3 billion cubic metres of water - enough to fill about 21 MacRitchie Reservoirs - the dam is the largest hydro-electricity project in the world.
If the dam is destroyed and it disgorges its contents, that is certain to wreak havoc on the surrounding areas and unleash an environmental calamity.
China is aware of its vulnerability - and the kind of threats as suggested by the Pentagon in a recent report. It has calculated the likely damage.
In a minimum-loss scenario, on the assumption that China has enough time - seven days - to lower the water level before an enemy strike, all the areas upward of Sha Shi city, which is located about 300km east of the dam, will be inundated.
This will cause huge damage to Hubei province in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.
However, if China does not have time to lower the water level, which is more likely the case in times of war, the torrents released would inundate six provinces in the entire middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze basin.
That will kill at least half a million people alone in Yichang, the largest city nearest the dam, not counting widespread damage elsewhere.
This is the maximum-loss scenario.
Thus, in a military sense, the dam could be turned easily into a Sword of Damocles over China's head, which explains, partly, why it took China 30 years to decide on building the dam.
According to a China Times Weekly report in August 2002, the Taiwanese military had, in fact, conducted a computer simulation attack on the dam.
In the simulated attack, a squadron of F-16 fighters equipped with Maverick missiles and other smart bombs were deployed to hit the dam while long-range Hsiungfeng II missiles were fired to take out the missile defence system guarding the dam.
Until recently, Taiwan was still sending people to gather data on site. Three were caught red-handed on April 13 while surveying the dam with global positioning systems.
Since Mr Chen Shui-bian became President in 2000, he has ordered a change in defence strategy from a passive to an active posture, and vowed to 'win a war decisively outside Taiwan'.
This resulted in a new 'Scorpion Strategy' aimed at dealing China a severe blow should it decide to use force against the island.
According to a report by the pro-independence Taiwan Daily on June 9, quoting Ministry of National Defence (MND) sources, planners have identified five categories of targets:
Beijing, China's capital, which has great symbolic implications both politically and militarily;
The densely populated and economically more developed coastal cities of Shanghai, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Nanjing, Tianjin, Dalian and Qingdao;
The important military targets, like missile bases, airports and radar stations;
Major transport, communication and network nodes; and
Important civilian assets like the Three Gorges Dam, oil refineries and steel works.
In the same newspaper report, Taiwan's new Defence Minister Lee Jye confirmed to a legislator of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Mr Li Chen-nan, that the Taiwanese military had already acquired 'effective deterrence'.
Clearly, this capability comes acquiring American arms. China Times reported on June 10 that Vice-Defence Minister Tsai Ming-hsien told the legislature that the United States might adjust its arms sales policy to include offensive weapons like air-to-surface and cruise missiles.
He therefore urged the legislature to approve a huge NT$610 billion (S$31.5 billion) special provision for such purchases.
He also admitted to China Times that except for nuclear weapons, the United States no longer objected to Taiwan developing medium-range ballistic missiles.
All this suggests that the United States is actively helping Taiwan to implement its Scorpion Strategy.
Mr John Tkacik, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank that has the ears of the Bush administration, offered this reason.
If Taiwan did not possess a credible deterrence, he said, it would be the US that had to confront China directly. That, America would rather avoid.
He therefore commended the Pentagon for its suggestion on hitting the dam, saying it was 'an absolutely good idea'. It was very important that the Pentagon could discuss openly with its Taiwanese counterpart how to deter a Chinese attack, he added.
If the pro-Taiwan scholar's view indeed reflects Pentagon thinking, then the suggestion to hit the Three Gorges Dam could well be just the tip of the iceberg.
Wanna bet?
>>I do not believe the PRC leadership would care a whit if a couple of hundred thusand or more of their people were killed,
Based on their Human Wave tactics in Korea and later on against the Indians in 1962, like the islamis, deaths of their own people are irrelevant towards their goals. Iran's children marching into Iraqi minefields is also an example.
Would they be willing to take the econ hit to absorb Taiwan where that prize would be worth the damage.
Hope we never have to find out.
Yeah. Well, the money's good.
Our dear Chinese friends speak! By all means, let's make them stronger! Send them more of our factories! Send them more of our jobs, our investment, and our technology!
The Chinese will soon give the term "free traitor" real meaning!
If you want on or off my offshoring ping list, please FReepmail me!
LOL! You have been there, and doe that :-)
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