Chinese Military Is Not Capable To Attack Taiwan In Near Future, Says US General

China's military will be incapable of invading Taiwan for some time and President Xi Jinping knows that attacking would be a disaster in any case, according to a top US general. 

An invasion would be a “very difficult military operation to execute,” said General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday.

He said that the Chinese leader “would conclude that an attack on Taiwan in the near future would be an excessive amount of risk, resulting in a strategic debacle for the Chinese military.”

Milley's remarks remind his previous remarks that, while China may want to be prepared for an invasion by 2027, its military is not. Despite China's ambitions, he said the US military remains the most lethal fighting force in the world and will remain so “one, five, ten and fifty years from now.”

“We are militarily prepared and one of the most important things right now is to ensure that Taiwan can defend itself, and there have been a lot of lessons learned from the Ukrainian war,” Milley said.

He further said that one thing people are learning is that war on paper is very different from real war and when there is bloodshed, people die and people die and real tanks are being blown up, things are a little bit different.

Speaking alongside Milley, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed hope that China would improve communication with the US military. He mentioned that meeting with his Chinese counterpart when both are in Cambodia for the ASEAN’s defence ministers meeting next week.

“We will both be in Cambodia in the near future, I don't have any scheduled meetings to announce, but there is an opportunity there, and we'll see how things play out,” Austin said.