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PLA general slams `independence terrorists'

A Chinese general denounced a US suggestion that Taiwan's military target China's Three Gorges dam and said yesterday that any strike on the world's biggest hydropower project would lead to war.

In its annual report to Congress on China's military power, the Pentagon suggested last month that Taiwan target the dam as a deterrent against any Chinese invasion of the island.

China will "be seriously on guard against threats from `Taiwan independence terrorists,'" People's Liberation Army (PLA) Lieutenant General Liu Yuan (劉源) said in a commentary in the official China Youth Daily, warning against such a move.

"[It] will not be able to stop war ... it will have the exact opposite of the desired effect," Liu said.

"It will provoke retaliation that will `blot out the sky and cover up the earth,'" he said, quoting a Chinese idiom.

The warning came as Ministry of National Defense in Taipei said it had test fired two Patriot anti-missile missiles to showcase its air defense capability.

The test was part of a routine drill and was conducted at a military base in southern Taiwan, the ministry said. It did not say when the test was held or give any other details.

Liu asserted that no country had conventional warhead missiles capable of critically damaging the dam -- made of concrete with a maximum thickness of more than 100m.

"The Three Gorges Dam will not collapse and cannot be destroyed," he said.

Seismologists have said the dam is designed to withstand an earthquake measuring 10 on the Richter scale.

The dam was first proposed decades ago, but construction was delayed because late Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong (毛澤東) wanted to ensure the PLA could defend it against any attack by Chiang Kai-shek's (蔣介石) Nationalist troops. Construction finally began in 1993 and China has expressed confidence it can defend it.

But the Pentagon report stirred controversy in China.

"Since Taipei cannot match Beijing's ability to field offensive systems, proponents of strikes against the mainland apparently hope that merely presenting credible threats to China's urban population or high-value targets, such as the Three Gorges Dam, will deter Chinese military coercion," it said.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said last week the report was "Cold War mentality harboring evil intentions."

US President George W. Bush has pledged to do whatever it takes to help Taiwan defend itself against an invasion by China.

Liu, the general, called the Pentagon's suggestion "petty psychological war."

He likened Washington to "a prostitute pretending to be a gentleman" and no better than Osama bin Laden.

The Three Gorges Dam, also the world's largest flood control project, is due to be completed in 2009 at a cost of nearly US$25 billion. With total capacity of 18,200 megawatts, it will generate 84.6 billion kwh of electricity a year.

China says it needs the dam to contain the Yangtze River's devastating annual floods and to meet future power demand. But critics say it is not a practical solution to either problem and could cause pollution by slowing the river's flow.
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