The chairman of the new House committee on China has raised eyebrows after claiming that the Biden administration is not acting with an "appropriate sense of urgency" to "prevent World War III," just days after his photo-op with Taiwan’s president prompted China to undertake unprecedented military drills around the renegade province.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said in an exclusive interview with Fox News on Friday that the US will face "the window of maximum danger" in terms of a potential hot war with Beijing at the start of the Taiwanese presidential election in January 2024.
Gallagher claimed Biden doesn’t view an effort by the Chinese government to take Taiwan by force as "an imminent threat," insisting the Democratic administration privately believes it’s "unlikely" Beijing would make a move anytime soon.
But "more troubling is whether or not you think this is going to happen in five years, 10 years, or one year, we should be moving heaven and earth to prevent it, and make sure that it never happens," Gallagher said, with no apparent irony. "I have not seen that sense of urgency from the Biden administration over the last three years, and it’s very disappointing.”
The remarks came less than a week after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen made a provocative visit to California in which she met with both Gallagher and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The Chinese government responded to that visit, which Tsai’s office downplayed as a mere "stopover," with massive three-day air and sea military exercises which included the deployment of a record-setting 91 fighter jets.
Gallagher dismissed the drills as a "temper tantrum," but it’s likely Taiwan’s residents see it differently.
Following US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s high-profile trip to Taipei, polling from the pro-US Brookings Institution revealed a huge majority of respondents in Taiwan said her visit was "detrimental to Taiwan’s security."
In fact, it wasn’t even close – Taiwanese agreed the visit had made their island "less safe" by more than 2-to-1, the survey found.
Gallagher’s aggressive rhetoric underscores an emerging division between the US and Europe, especially when contrasted with recent comments by French President Emmanuel Macron, who refused to back down this week after insisting France shouldn’t be a "vassal" to the US in terms of its relations with China.
While there’s been little daylight between the European and American position towards Russia, there may still be hope yet for cooperation between EU member states and Beijing.