WH on Warning of China War in 2025: We’ve ‘Addressed’ China ‘For Quite Some Time’ — There ‘Should Not’ Be War

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” White House NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby reacted to four-star Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan’s reported prediction of a U.S.-China war in 2025 by stating that “we’ve addressed the challenges coming out of China here for quite some time. It’s very plainly in our national security strategy, it’s in the Pentagon’s national defense strategy.” And the competition between the U.S. and China “should not” turn into a conflict.

Host Wolf Blitzer asked, “In a new memo, a top U.S. Air Force General is warning of a potential conflict with China, the U.S. and China in 2025. Is that accurate, does the administration agree, and was there such an assessment by this top Air Force general?”

Kirby responded, “You know, we’ve addressed the challenges coming out of China here for quite some time. It’s very plainly in our national security strategy, it’s in the Pentagon’s national defense strategy. They call it the pacing challenge. And we need to make sure that, in every sphere of government, we can meet that challenge head-on. The president believes that we are — should be in a competition with China and that it should not devolve into conflict. And there’s no reason for it to, Wolf. There’s no reason for the bilateral relationship — the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world to sort of erupt into some kind of conflict. But we do believe, and the president has made clear, that we are in a competition with China, a competition that he believes the United States is well poised to win.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett