Newsman: A U.S. Air Force four-star general has warned of war with China within the next two years, likely over self-ruled Taiwan.
The US Air Force general said in an internal memo that the US and China risk going to war in two years and told officers under his command to prepare, including with target practice. But Pentagon officials said that were not consistent with American military assessments.
“I hope I am wrong,” General Mike Minihan, who heads the Air Mobility Command, wrote to the leadership of its roughly 110,000 members. “My gut tells me will fight in 2025.”
The letter was dated Feb. 1 but had been sent out on Friday.
The general’s views do not represent the Pentagon but show concern at the highest levels of the U.S. military over a possible attempt by China to exert control over Taiwan, which China claims as a territory. Both the United States and Taiwan will hold presidential elections in 2024, potentially creating an opportunity for China to take military action, Minihan wrote.
Reuters reviewed a copy of Minihan’s memo, which was first reported by NBC News.
In a response to a request for comment on Minihan’s memo, first reported by NBC News, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder called China the Defense Department’s “pacing challenge,” adding that “our focus remains on working alongside allies and partners to preserve a peaceful, free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Gen. Mike Minihan, who heads the U.S. Air Mobility Command, warned in a letter to the leadership of its roughly 110,000 personnel that it must speed up preparations for a looming conflict, citing Chinese President Xi Jinping’s goals and the possibility that Washington and Taipei will be preoccupied with other domestic issues in the ensuing two years.
“I hope I am wrong,” Minihan wrote in the letter dated Feb. 1 but sent out Friday. “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025. Xi secured his third term and set his war council in October 2022. Taiwan’s presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a reason. United States’ presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a distracted America. Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025.”
The Defense Department looked to distance itself from the letter, with a defense official telling The Japan Times that the comments “are not representative of the department’s view on China.”
A national security strategy presented by the administration in October called China the only US competitor “with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.”
China has criticized the latest US defense spending package, which permits up to $10 billion in weapons sales to Taiwan, for playing up the China threat and interfering in its internal affairs.
China has continued what the Pentagon calls “provocative” moves near Taiwan this year, including a large-scale “combat” drill around the island.
Fears of a conflict between the two powers hit a fresh high in 2021, when Adm. Philip Davidson, then head of the U.S. military’s Indo-Pacific Command, caused a stir by spelling out a timeline for a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
“I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next six years,” Davidson said in testimony before the U.S. Senate’s Armed Services Committee.
Davidson noted in a recent interview that his 2027 assessment could include assaults on small, outlying islands held by Taipei, an overlooked potential flash point.
In October, the head of the U.S. Navy warned that the military must be prepared for the possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan before 2024. Days earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Beijing was “determined to pursue” unification on a “much faster timeline” after deciding that the status quo over Taiwan was “no longer acceptable.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has sought to dampen fears of a looming conflict with Beijing after Washington identified China as its top security challenge.
“We believe that they endeavor to establish a new normal, but whether or not that means that an invasion is imminent, I seriously doubt that,” Austin said earlier this month after so-called two-plus-two talks in Washington involving himself, Blinken and their Japanese counterparts.
