Former NATO Commander's Prediction About War With China

Retired U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis, NATO's former supreme allied commander Europe, has said that China will not be ready for a potential war with the U.S. "for about 10 years."

Stavridis made the remarks during an interview aired this week on talk radio's The Michael Medved show. After being asked whether tensions centered on South China Sea territorial disputes could spill over into a new world war, he said that the U.S. and its regional allies have a 10-year "grace period" to prepare for the possibility of a war with China.

U.S.-China relations have been on a knife edge due to military activity in the sensitive waters of the Taiwan Strait by American and regional allies. China claims sovereignty over the strait and most of the rest of the South China Sea, in opposition to international maritime law and the views of nearly every other country in the world.

"Even though China is building a massive fleet, even though they're acting aggressively, they're not ready yet," Stavridis said. "If we ended up in a war with China, it wouldn't just be the U.S. and China. We have treaty allies who are sworn to come and be part of a military campaign like that[...]Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand."

"That's a lot of firepower," he continued. "China, in my estimation, will not be ready to take on the U.S. in a very mature way for about 10 years. So, I think we have a bit of a grace period here, where we can strengthen our military to preserve deterrence and also try to use diplomacy[...]all the other means we have to take tension out of the relationship."

Stavridis, whose book 2034: A Novel of the Next World War imagines a global conflict with China, went on to say that President Joe Biden's November summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping near San Francisco "took some of the tension out of the relationship," while conceding that the meeting "didn't solve all the problems."

In a statement emailed to Newsweek on Thursday, Chinese Embassy in the U.S. spokesperson Liu Pengyu said that "China is committed to peaceful development and adheres to a national defense policy that is defensive in nature."

"China and the U.S. should develop bilateral relations under the three principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation as proposed by President Xi Jinping," Liu said.

"We urge the relevant people to abandon the Cold War mentality, stop stoking confrontation between China and the U.S., and do more things that are conducive to enhancing mutual trust between the two countries and friendship between the two peoples," he added.

Retired Chinese Navy Rear Admiral Yang Yi has also seemed to suggest that China is not ready for war with the U.S., saying during an event in Beijing on Saturday that the Chinese military "must be prepared for various scenarios" by becoming "powerful and strong."

"Power is very important," he said. "When you are powerful and strong, the U.S. will not dare to anger you, and you can better protect your national interests."

The Taiwan Strait dispute has led to concerns from some that a minor incident could quickly lead to a full-blown war. The scenario has recently been amplified and promoted by the English-language Chinese state media outlet Global Times, which is known for pushing Chinese Communist Party propaganda to a global audience.

Relations between China and U.S. ally the Philippines have been particularly tense in recent months, with Beijing increasingly using force to assert its sovereignty claim over energy-rich areas of the South China Sea that are within the Philippines' internationally recognized exclusive economic zone.

Update 12/28, 7:04 p.m. ET: This article has been updated to include a statement from Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the U.S.