Chinese attack on Taiwan not ‘imminent’ and predicting it unhelpful to Pentagon readiness: US general
- Cross-strait conflict is not ‘inevitable’ and American goal is to avoid military flare-up, says Air Force’s chief of staff
- Concern about Beijing’s plans for self-ruled island has intensified amid Chinese military’s modernisation
Asked whether he agreed with recent predictions of a military flare-up in the Taiwan Strait, General Charles Brown, the Air Force’s chief of staff, replied: “I don’t see that conflict is imminent or inevitable.”
“The goal is to avoid it, and so not knowing when things might occur, my goal is to be ready today, tomorrow, next week, next year, next decade,” Brown said at a discussion hosted by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
Speculation about when military conflict in the Taiwan Strait might break out “is not necessarily helpful”, he added.
“I’ve been disappointed by some of the comments that have been made [about conflict time frames] because it takes away from what we’re really trying to do, which is to make sure we’re going to be ready.”
Against this backdrop, Philip Davidson, then-head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said in 2021 that Beijing’s military might try to unify Taiwan with mainland China “within the next six years” – an assessment now often referred to as “the Davidson time frame”.
“What we’ve seen over the past 20 years is that they have delivered on every promise they’ve made earlier than they said they were going to deliver on it,” the admiral said in a discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council.