“I hope he’s wrong. But I think he’s right,” Mike McCaul, the new chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News Sunday.
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 territory.
Both the United States and Taiwan will hold presidential elections in 2024, which could create an opportunity for China to take military action, Minihan wrote.
McCaul said that if China could not take control of Taiwan bloodlessly, “in my judgment, they will face a military invasion. We have to be prepared for that.”
He accused the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden of projecting weakness, following the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, that could make war with China more likely.
“The chances that we will see a conflict with China and Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific are very high.”McCaul said.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declared earlier this month that he seriously doubted that the intensification of Chinese military activities near the Taiwan Strait was a sign of an imminent invasion of the island by Beijing.
On Saturday, a Pentagon official said the general’s commentsHe “were not representative of the department’s opinion on China”
Source: Ambito
