’We’ll fight in 2025’: US general warns of war with China in 2 years
In a memo obtained by NBC, General Mike Minihan told other commanders to get ready for combat: ‘Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025.’
China accused a senior American general of being “reckless” after he said the superpowers would be at war within two years.
In a stark warning about the chance of conflict over President Xi’s determination to seize Taiwan, General Mike Minihan, who oversees the US Air Force’s fleet of transport and refuelling aircraft, said: “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me [we] will fight in 2025.”
In the memo obtained by NBC News, Minihan told operational commanders to make ready for combat. “Xi secured his third term and set his war council in October 2022,” he said. “Taiwan’s presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a reason. US presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a distracted America. Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025.”
His remarks were a rare example of a senior US military official suggesting US troops would respond if China were to invade Taiwan – something officials in Washington had hitherto been reluctant to state explicitly, preferring to maintain the longstanding position of “strategic ambiguity”.
However, President Biden has been more explicit recently, telling CBS 60 Minutes in September that the US would respond to an invasion. “Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack.” Asked to clarify if he meant that unlike in Ukraine, US forces – American men and women – would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, Biden said: “Yes.”
The memo comes amid rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait, where Beijing has increased military and diplomatic pressure on the island it sees as part of Chinese territory that must be reunified with the mainland.
An air force spokeswoman, Major Hope Cronin, verified the memo’s authenticity, saying it “builds on last year’s foundational efforts by Air Mobility Command to ready forces for future conflict, should deterrence fail”.
A US defence official, meanwhile, told The Washington Post that Minihan’s comments “are not representative of the department’s view on China”. It reported that before taking over at Air Mobility Command in 2021, Minihan served in a variety of influential roles in the Pacific beginning in 2013. They include a stint as the deputy commander of Indo-Pacific Command, with purview of China and Taiwan, from September 2019 to August 2021.
Regardless, the response from Beijing was forthright. Xin Qiang, deputy director of the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the state-run Global Times newspaper that Minihan had been “provocative and reckless”. Xin warned against what he described as a “self-fulfilling prophecy”, claiming that the remarks could “exacerbate mistrust and further damage China-US relations”.
Last year Admiral Mike Gilday, chief of the US naval operations, also raised the possibility of war in the Taiwan Strait. “When we talk about the 2027 window [when China should build capability to seize Taiwan], in my mind that has to be 2022 or potentially 2023,” he said. However, he did not indicate direct US involvement.
Last week the US Marine Corps opened its first new base in 70 years on the Pacific island of Guam to host 5000 marines. Camp Blaz is seen as another US effort to deter Beijing from attacking Taiwan. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, will make his long-awaited trip to Beijing, planned for February 5-6, to discuss ways to avoid the deterioration of bilateral relations.
Panda Diplomacy
Five years ago, as Finland celebrated the 100th anniversary of its independence, China gave it a double-edged birthday gift: two giant pandas.
At the time Finnish leaders described the arrival of Lumi (snow) and Pyry (blizzard) as the highlight of the centenary and promised to look after the Chinese “national treasure” with “honour and respect”.
Yet the pandas face deportation as the zoo looking after them says it can no longer afford the euros 1.5 million a year it needs to rent them from Beijing and keep them in the style to which they are accustomed.
Notionally the pandas are kept in Ahtari, a town 170 miles (north of Helsinki, for conservation purposes. The climate, with its harsh winters, is supposed to resemble their natural habitat in Sichuan, China, and Lumi and Pyry are just about to hit full sexual maturity. Yet their destiny is a diplomatically sensitive matter. Beijing distributes pandas as a token of its favour, and the Ahtari pair arrived shortly after Finland formally declared Taiwan to be part of China. Conversely, sending them back could be seen as a slight.
Ahtari zoo said it had no other option after ministers turned down its appeal for euros 5 million in panda funding, amid reports that the subsidy had fallen victim to political rivalries before a general election in April. The foreign affairs, finance and farming ministries have convened a “central panda working group” to determine if any money can be spared and what impact the return of Lumi and Pyry might have on relations with China.
The Times
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