China's top state newspaper warned on Monday that any Western-backed military intervention in Syria would unleash even bloodier chaos, and said abandoning envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan could push Syria into the "abyss" of full-scale war.

The People's Daily, the main newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party, spelled out the reasons for Beijing's
opposition to a tougher response to the massacre last month of 108 people in Houla, which Western and Arab governments blamed on forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

The paper also warned that "external forces are not qualified to meddle".