Senior Chinese Military Expert Cautions Restraint in Reaction to US Attacks

A senior Chinese military strategist on Wednesday said no governments should "react in a rash manner" to the devastating wave of terrorist attacks across the United States.

Major General Zhang Qinsheng, head of the faculty of operational tactics at the National Defence University, said the motives for the attacks in New York, Washington and elsewhere should be discovered first.

"There is still some time, the reason has not been determined yet," he told reporters on the sidelines of an international relations forum in Beijing.

"No government should react in a rash manner and any government should, in its actions, comply with the mainstream of the development of mankind," he added, without elaborating.

US President George W. Bush vowed following the attacks that his country would seek out and punish those deemed responsible for the terror wreaked on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon.

Zhang reiterated Chinese horror at the attacks, which seem almost certain to have killed thousands of people.

"We were shocked when we heard about the news that this could happen in an era of peace and development, this kind of terrorist act. On this point the United States and China hold common views," he said.






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