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'My gut tells me we will fight in 2025': Top US General predicts war with China over Taiwan

'My gut tells me we will fight in 2025': Top US General predicts war with China over Taiwan

General Mike Minihan, head of US Air Mobility Command, said in a memo that his gut told him the United States would fight China in the next two years

Both the United States and Taiwan will hold presidential elections in 2024, potentially creating an opportunity for China to take military action Both the United States and Taiwan will hold presidential elections in 2024, potentially creating an opportunity for China to take military action

A top American Air Force general has predicted that China could be at war with the United States two years from now.

General Mike Minihan, head of US Air Mobility Command, said in a memo that his gut told him the United States would fight China in the next two years, comments that Pentagon officials said were not consistent with American military assessments.

"I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me will fight in 2025," General Mike Minihan wrote in a private memo, according to a report by Reuters.

The general's views do not represent the Pentagon but show concern at the highest levels of the US military over a possible attempt by China to exert control over Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, the report said.

Both the United States and Taiwan will hold presidential elections in 2024, potentially creating an opportunity for China to take military action, Minihan wrote.

Meanwhile, a US defense official said that these comments are not representative of the department's view on China.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said earlier this month he seriously doubted that ramped-up Chinese military activities near the Taiwan Strait were a sign of an imminent invasion of the island by Beijing.

Recently, Taiwan also condemned China for holding its second military combat drills around the island in less than a month, with the defence ministry saying it had detected 57 Chinese aircraft.

China views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory and has been ramping up military, political and economic pressure to assert those claims.

It held war games around Taiwan last August, following a visit to Taipei by Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

India-China ties

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed that India, known for its independent foreign policy, was forced to change its strategic stance and join the four-nation Quad alliance due to China’s growing aggression.

Pompeo, one of former US President Donald Trump’s most hawkish advisers on China, explained in his latest book how Washington succeeded in bringing India on board the Quad grouping after years of ambivalence from New Delhi.

“The country (India) has always charted its own course without a true alliance system, and that is still mostly the case. But China’s actions have caused India to change its strategic posture in the last few years,” Pompeo wrote in his recently released book 'Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love'.

In his book, Pompeo traced the major events that led to a decline in India-China ties in recent years – from Beijing’s growing closeness with Islamabad, its Belt and Road Initiative push, border disputes that escalated to a showdown between Indian and Chinese troops at Galwan, and India’s retaliatory ban on dozens of Chinese apps like TikTok.

The Republican also blamed Covid-19, which he has referred to as the “Wuhan virus” in the past, for the souring of bilateral relations between the two neighbours.

(With agency inputs)

Published on: Jan 29, 2023, 11:48 AM IST
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