The US Army Chief of Staff, Mark Milley, warned that any Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a strategic mistake like Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he said.
"I think (the decision) would be unwise, it would be a political mistake, a geopolitical mistake, a strategic mistake, similar to the strategic mistake that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin made in Ukraine," Milley told reporters Wednesday.
At the same time, the US general considered Chinese President Xi Jinping to be a "rational actor," as he put it.
Adding, saying: "I think he is assessing things on the basis of costs, benefits and risks, and I think he will conclude that an attack on Taiwan in the near future carries an excessive amount of risk, and will end in a strategic failure for the Chinese army."
Milley appeared to be responding to the remarks of Xi, who recently won a historic third term at the helm of the Communist Party and the country and declared that unifying Taiwan with China is a top priority for his country.
Draw lessons
And the US Chief of Staff considered that any Chinese attack would hinder its efforts to become the largest economic and military power in the world, pointing to the need to draw lessons from the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began last February and encountered unexpected strong resistance from Kyiv.
And after Mark Milley said that "one of the things people learn is that war on paper is very different from war in reality," he pointed out that the Chinese army had not fought battles since its fight against the Vietnamese in 1979.
The US general added that while the Chinese army could easily attack Taiwan with bombs and missiles, the actual control of the densely populated mountainous island would be "a very difficult military task," considering that the Chinese "would play a very dangerous game by crossing the strait and invading the island of Taiwan. They do not have the experience and background to do so." Thus," he said.