Chinese General Warns Against U.S.-Japanese War 'Trap'

February 7, 2013 • 10:06AM

As tensions escalate between China and Japan, the South China Morning Post has reported comments by a leading Chinese General, Liu Yuan, from an essay originally printed in China's Global Times. Gen. Liu wrote that the targeting of China was to stop its economic development, and that "we must resist America and Japan's attempts to suppress China's development." His essay described the past 180 years, during which China's efforts to develop were repeatedly derailed by war. Gen. Liu was quoted as saying, "We should not be interrupted by accidental [warfare] again.... What the Americans and the Japanese fear is that we will catch up with them, which is why they exhaust every possible means to suppress China's development. We should not fall into their trap."

The General's reported essay coincides with the Jan. 30 altercation between a Chinese frigate and Japanese destroyer in the South China Sea.

In reporting that event, The Age newspaper of Melbourne cited the dramatic warning made last week by a senior Chinese military officer, Col. Liu Mingfu of China's National Defense University, that the U.S. was acting as the "global tiger", leading Japan, "Asia's wolf", in mauling China. Reflecting how close British stooge Obama's "Asia pivot" has brought the region to actual warfare, Col. Liu had reminded the Japanese of China's nuclear arsenal, and that should Japan once again become an aggressor as in World War II, China would strike. "The world would hail, if Japan receives such a blow," he concluded. Col. Liu also warned that Australia should not become a "jackal for the tiger or dance with the wolf." As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald on Jan. 23, Col. Liu nailed the strategic agenda, which he identified was to "build 'a mini-NATO' to contain China, with the US and Japan at its core and Australia within its orbit," as the SMH put it.