DHAKA: In one of the many frank exchanges US defence secretary Chuck Hagel had in China this week, General Fan Changlong told him how one of his uncles died as a slave in a Japanese mine during World War Two.

General Fan, the deputy head of China’s powerful Central Military Commission, spoke about the lessons of history, signalling Beijing’s concerns that the United States was siding with Japan against China.

Hagel replied by saying his own father had helped fight Japanese forces in World War Two, reports The Straits Times.

‘The secretary made it very clear that we should be informed by history but not driven by it,’ a US official told media, speaking on condition of anonymity to recount a conversation on Tuesday that he described as terse.

BDST: 2058 HRS, APR 09, 2014