White House: ‘No Reason’ for US-China War in 2025

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby speaks during the daily briefing in the James S Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on Nov. 28, 2022. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

The White House is responding to a reported memo from a top Air Force general which asserted that the United States and China would be at war by 2025.

There is no need for such a war to ever emerge and conflict between communist China and the United States can still be avoided, according to White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby.

“We’ve addressed the challenges coming out of China here for quite some time,” Kirby said 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.”

Kirby’s comments follow the circulation of a memo allegedly written by Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan, who said that he believed a war between China and the United States would erupt in 2025.

Minihan wrote that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, could seize upon international distraction as both Taiwan and the United States will be in the midst of presidential elections.

Moreover, the general noted that CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping had secured a historic third term in charge of the Party, and used the opportunity to silence detractors and build up his war council with CCP hardliners.

“Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025,” Minihan wrote before adding that “unrepentant lethality matters most,” and encouraging U.S. troops to “aim for the head.”

The CCP claims that Taiwan is a rogue province of China and has threatened war to force the island into unification with the mainland. However, Taiwan has never been ruled by the CCP and boasts a democratic government and thriving market economy.

Some analysts believe that the CCP is actively preparing to launch an invasion of Taiwan, and is actively working to ensure that the United States is not prepared to intervene on Taiwan’s behalf.

Still, the White House believes that “the United States is well poised to win” the competition with China without it spilling over into war, according to Kirby, who underscored the nation’s focus on China in strategic documents released last year.

“It’s very plainly in our national security strategy,” Kirby said. “It’s in the Pentagon’s national defense strategy. They call [China] the ‘pacing challenge’.”

“We need to make sure that in every sphere of government, we can meet that challenge head-on.”