Oliver Stone warns US about danger of seeing China as a threat

Acclaimed Hollywood film director Oliver Stone has warned the United States against a "dangerous" policy of seeing China as a potential military threat to America, the region and the wider world.

He was speaking at the World Business Forum held recently in Hong Kong. The Post had exclusive media access to the filmmaker, who is considered an influential revisionist historian, famed for questioning accepted orthodoxy or conventional wisdom, as well as an astute social commentator.

"I think that this new dialogue about China being a threat to the United States is so non-productive and dangerous," said Stone, aged 68.

The director of critically acclaimed films such as Platoon, Wall Street and Nixon said China was not an "expansionary" nation, unlike the US with its hundreds of military bases around the world.

"China will grow, but China's history, the DNA of China, has always been non-expansion abroad," he said.

"China is trying to make a buck and very smart by going into these countries and trying to encourage their productivity, their growth of their infrastructure. They see the long range, the long picture, and we need that in the world. We need people to see the long picture."