McCaul: Odds of conflict with China and Taiwan ‘very high’ with Biden in White House

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) suggested on Sunday that the risk of a conflict with China and Taiwan is “very high” with President Biden in the White House.

“We have to be prepared for this — and it could happen I think as long as Biden is in office projecting weakness as he did with Afghanistan that led to Putin invading Ukraine — that the odds are very high we could see a conflict with China and Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific,” McCaul told Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday.”

A U.S. general said in a memo on Friday that he believes the country will be in a war with China by 2025, saying that Taiwan’s and the U.S.’s presidential elections in 2024 may give Chinese President Xi Jinping an “opportunity.” 

“I hope he’s wrong as well,” McCaul said. “I think he’s right, though, unfortunately.”

McCaul also said he is “very” worried about the U.S. running out of precision missiles and advanced technology in less than a week if the U.S. entered a conflict with China, echoing a study published by a think tank earlier this month found that the U.S. would likely run out of some of its munitions, including long-range, precision-guided ones, in less than a week of war with China in the Taiwan Strait.

The study said that the U.S. was “not adequately prepared” for a war with China, saying that the U.S. commitment to sending more defense systems to Ukraine exposed the shortfalls of the defense industry.

“Our industrial defense base is broken,” McCaul said. “I signed off on all foreign military weapon sales three years ago. They have yet to go into Taiwan. So we need that deterrence. But if we don’t have the weapons, that’s as critical for deterrence.”

Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), who is the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, also said on Sunday that U.S. military readiness is a “huge problem.”

“This is a huge problem. And we don’t have the industrial base. And we don’t have the ability to ramp up that industrial base,” Smith said on “Fox News Sunday.” 

He also said he is “worried” when people say that a war with China is “inevitable” and instead said a war with China is “highly unlikely.”