War with China is on the drawing board of the Pentagon. China has responded to US threats and military deployments in the Indo-Pacific region. President Xi Jinping has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to prepare for a possible war.
Addressing China’s Central Military Commission, Xi said
“(a)ll military units must correctly understand major national security and development trends, and strengthen their sense of unexpected hardship, crisis and battle.”
“The world is facing a period of major changes never seen in a century, and China is still in an important period of strategic opportunity for development.”
Xi ordered stepped up military training and exercises, saying China’s armed forces must “prepare for a comprehensive military struggle from a new starting point”, adding:
“Preparation for war and combat must be deepened to ensure an efficient response in times of emergency.”
Days earlier, a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Daily editorial stressed there’s “no time for slackening in war preparation.”
Part of what’s going on is what Xi called his aim for “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan. Beijing considers the island state a breakaway province, reunification inevitable, by force if “democratic consultations” fail to “reach transitional arrangements for the peaceful development of cross-strait ties,” adding:
“Chinese don’t fight Chinese,” while saying his government “makes no promise to renounce the use of force and reserves the option of taking all necessary means” for reunification, stressing no tolerance for “foreign intervention.”
“(O)ne country, two systems” is the way forward, he said, the approach adopted in reunification with Hong Kong and Macau.
Xi’s remarks followed enactment of the US Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA), discussed in a separate article – legislation authorizing funding for Washington’s imperial Indo/Pacific agenda, mainly by its military footprint in a part of the world not its own, the way it operates globally.
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