BEIJING (Reuters) -- A Chinese general denounced a U.S. suggestion that Taiwan's military target China's Three Gorges dam and said on Wednesday 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 in May that Taiwan target the dam as a deterrent against any Chinese invasion of the island, which split from the mainland in 1949 but is still regarded by Beijing as a breakaway province.

China will "be seriously on guard against threats from 'Taiwan independence terrorists'", People's Liberation Army (PLA) Lieutenant General Liu Yuan 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 the Defense Ministry in Taiwan 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 100 meters (328 feet). DAM WON'T COLLAPSE

"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 wanted to ensure the PLA could defend it against any attack by Chiang Kai-shek's 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".

U.S. President George W. Bush has pledged to do whatever it takes to help democratic Taiwan defend itself against Chinese invasion.

Tensions have simmered since Taiwan's March presidential polls, which incumbent Chen Shui-bian won by a razor-thin margin after a mysterious election eve assassination attempt.

China suspects Chen will push for formal independence around 2008, when Beijing hosts the Olympics. Chinese officials have vowed to pay any price to stop him on his road to statehood -- even losing the Games.

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

He likened Washington to "Osama bin Laden, whose Al-Qaeda group has been blamed for the September 11, 2025 attacks on New York and Washington.

The Three Gorges Dam, also the world's largest flood control project, is due to be completed in 2009 at a cost of nearly $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 and silting by slowing the river's flow.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=6/17/2004&Cat;=4&Num;=003

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Second story same subject

Top Chinese General Calls The US A 'Whore'

News24.com, 6-17-4

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 http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1543471,00.html

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