A former head of the British Royal Navy and one of the best known British army chiefs had been unwittingly dragged into an anti-China campaign by a London think tank being paid by the Japanese government, it was reported Sunday.

Admiral Lord West, former first sea lord and chief of all British Royal Navy staff, and Colonel Bob Stewart, former British army officer, were both used in the war of words organized by the think tank, the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), the London-based Sunday Times newspaper reported.

The newspaper reported a week earlier that the Japanese embassy in London was paying HJS a reported 10,000 pounds a month to run an anti-China propaganda campaign.

Neither the Japanese embassy nor HJS have denied the arrangement.

The report claimed that West, who served as a security minister in the former Labor government, was recruited by the think tank to publicly oppose China.

West was asked by HJS to put his name to an article published on a political website last July which attacked China's maritime claims over the South China Sea.

The report said West was not being informed that HJS was being paid by the Japanese government.

source: Xinhua