Matthew Pottinger and Xi Jinping. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images and Staff/Getty Images
- China’s probability of invading Taiwan in the next decade is “more than 50 percent,” Matthew Pottinger said.
- Pottinger previously said an invasion would depend on how long Chinese leader Xi Jinping stays in power.
- Pottinger was one of the Trump administration’s top Asian security advisers for two years.
China has a more than 50% chance of invading Taiwan in the next 10 years, said Matthew Pottinger, who served as deputy national security adviser in the Trump administration.
Securing Taiwan is vital to Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s goal of rejuvenating his country, and the likelihood of Beijing attempting to take Taiwan by force is “more than 50 percent in the next decade,” he said Pottinger of the Japanese newspaper Kyodo News in an article published on Wednesday.
Pottinger, a US Marines veteran and former China reporter for Portal and the Wall Street Journal, served as deputy national security adviser from September 2019 to January 2021. He was the Trump administration’s top adviser on China and North Korea at the time, and one of their senior aides.
In a March interview with the Washington Post, he linked China’s likelihood of invading Taiwan to the predicted timeline for Xi’s stay in power.
“I suspect he’ll make that his legacy,” Pottinger told the Post.
The former US adviser said he wasn’t sure “what that means in terms of time” but suspected Xi wants to stay in power for another 10 years.
The Chinese leader secured an unprecedented third term for the top post in October and has yet to name a successor – leading observers predict he will seek a fourth term and rule for another decade overall.
And Xi seems to be quietly preparing for the conflict with Taiwan, building air raid shelters and field hospitals along the Taiwan Strait, passing new laws allowing the military to increase troop reserves, and using “loud speech” to prepare the Chinese people for war, Pottinger told The Post.
His comments come as US-China relations remain strained and senior US lawmakers strengthen ties with Taiwan.
Meanwhile, several leaked US intelligence documents appeared to reveal gaping weaknesses in Taiwan’s air defenses, the Washington Post reported.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing have flared in recent months over issues such as a Chinese surveillance balloon hovering over the US and congressional pressure on Chinese-made platform TikTok over concerns it could be spying on Americans.
In February, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that China was considering sending Russia arms and ammunition for its war in Ukraine, but offered no evidence to back the claim. China vehemently denied the claim.
In his recent interview with Kyodo News, Pottinger said he doubted China would supply arms directly to Russia and that Xi’s government knew such a move would cross a red line.
Sending arms to Moscow would upset China’s relations with the US and Europe and cripple the Chinese economy, he said.
Pottinger usually takes a tough stance on China. Testifying before Congress on Sino-US relations in February, he described Beijing as “secretly waging a new Cold War with the US.”
“The CCP should be viewed as a hungry shark, eating until its nose hits a metal barrier,” Pottinger told congressional leaders.
“But they also don’t take it personally when they see divers building a shark cage. For them, it’s all about business. It’s what they do,” he added. “The more decisively and uncompromisingly we take steps to defend our national security, the more respected borders will be and the more stable the balance of power is likely to be.”
Pottinger and the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to insider requests for comment aired outside of regular business hours.
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