Gordon Chang: US General’s Warning of War in 2025 ‘Absolutely Needed’

Gordon Chang, China analyst and author of "The Coming Collapse of China," in New York City on Jan. 3, 2023.(Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

A leading China analyst believes that a U.S. general’s warning of war in 2025 is a much-needed wake-up call for the Biden administration and the American people.

Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan said that he anticipated fighting between China and the United States to break out by 2025, in a memo leaked in late January.

That prediction, though dire, is precisely what U.S. leaders need to hear, according to Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, an international policy think tank.

“General Minihan’s comments are the shot-in-the-arm that is absolutely needed,” Chang said in an email to The Epoch Times.

“Unless we begin paying attention to Minihan, we will end up in a disaster of historic proportions.”

For Chang, Minihan’s memo gives a much-needed sense of urgency to the ongoing competition and potential conflict between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state.

Chang previously warned that the CCP is preparing for war through increased military manufacturing and streamlining the processes required to mobilize its military wing.

He hopes that Minihan’s memo will spur the American nation to see the threat clearly and act accordingly.

“The Biden administration and the Pentagon lack a sense of urgency,” Chang said. “China is preparing for war at this moment, but Americans are determined to take it easy.”

US Leadership Disagrees on Likelihood of War

U.S. military leadership previously warned that a CCP invasion of Taiwan could occur as soon as 2027, and could drag the United States into a catastrophic conflict.

Minihan’s memo truncates that timeline based on several factors including the fact that both the United States and Taiwan will be coming out of presidential elections at the beginning of 2025, and will likely be distracted from the threat posed by the CCP.

“I hope I am wrong,” Minihan said. “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”

“[CCP leader Xi Jinping’s] team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025.”

For its part, the White House has played down the contents of the memo and urged that there is no reason for the competition between the CCP and the United States to spiral into war.

“We’ve addressed the challenges coming out of China here for quite some time,” said National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby during a Jan. 30 interview with CNN.

“The president believes that we should be in a competition with China and that it should not evolve into conflict. There’s no reason for it to.”

Not everyone agrees with the White House’s assessment, however.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said during a Jan. 29 interview with Fox News that he believes the general’s prediction is accurate.

“I hope [Minihan’s] wrong,” McCaul said. “I think he’s right though, unfortunately.”

“We have to be prepared for this.”