A US general has spoken out against the risk of war with China in 2025 – mostly over Taiwan – and urged his officers to prepare for war earlier this year.
• Read more: Insecticide-resistant mosquitoes identified in Asia
“I hope I’m wrong. My intuition says we’ll be fighting in 2025,” Air Force Gen. Michael Minihan wrote in an internal memo, the authenticity of which was confirmed by the Pentagon to AFP on Friday.
The military said President Xi Jinping “has a team, a mission and a chance for 2025”, promising that the 2024 Taiwan elections would give the Chinese leader a “reason” to act.
A race for the White House, slated for the same year, would give China a “disoriented America,” he still judges.
This note, among other things, calls for his troops to train in battle by going into stands to fire at targets. The general calls for “aim for the heads.”
In August, China conducted large-scale military exercises around Taiwan, an unprecedented one, in response to a visit by then-Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
China believes the island, with a population of 24 million, is one of the provinces it has not been able to successfully reunify with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
He sees with displeasure the working rapprochement in recent years between Taiwanese officials and the United States, which has provided the island with military support against Beijing for decades.
