Image source,Reuters
According to US media reports, the top general of the US military, General Mark Milley, had secretly called the Chinese military twice because of concerns that Donald Trump would go to war with China in the final weeks of his term.
According to the “Washington Post” report, as the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milly assured Li Zuocheng, the chief of staff of the Joint Staff of the Central Military Commission of China, that the United States is stable and will not launch an attack on China. If there is an attack, it will Warn the Chinese in advance.
The revelation was first disclosed by senior reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of the Washington Post in the new book Peril to be published next week. The Associated Press quoted a senior defense official to confirm the statement in the book.
Former US President Trump denied in his response on Tuesday (September 14) that he had planned to attack China, saying that “the people who made up this story are sick.” He stated that if this matter is true, Milli should be “trialed for treason.”
Two phone calls
According to the book’s records, the two phone calls made by Mark Milly to China were on October 30, 2020, four days before the U.S. election, and on January 8, 2021, when Trump supporters were in the United States. Two days after the riots on Capitol Hill.
“General Lee, I want to assure you that the US government is stable and everything will be fine,” Mark Milly allegedly said in the first phone call. “We will not launch attacks against you, or launch any combat operations.”
“General Lee, we have known each other for five years. If we are to launch an attack, I will call you in advance,” Milly said.
In the second phone call, Milly said to Li Zuocheng, “Things may seem unstable…but this is the essence of democracy, General Li. We are 100% stable. Everything is fine. But democracy is sometimes a little messy.” According to the book, Li Zuocheng is still a little uneasy.
Image source,Getty Images
A profile photo of the then-U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milly and General Li Zuocheng of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army meeting in Beijing on August 16, 2016.
Two days before, Trump supporters rushed into the Capitol to try to prevent the certification of Trump’s defeat in the 2020 US presidential election.
However, despite Milli’s assurances, he was so worried about Trump that later that day, he convened a meeting with senior commanders to remind them that the procedures for launching nuclear weapons required his participation in order to make a decision.
According to the Associated Press, after the congressional riots on January 6 this year, Milly also had conversations with military leaders in other countries, including those in Britain, Russia and Pakistan. He conveyed a similar assurance that the US government is strong and under control.
According to the book, Milli called the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command in charge of affairs in the Asia-Pacific region and suggested postponing military exercises. It is not clear whether any military exercises were actually postponed, but the Associated Press quoted officials from the Department of Defense as saying that the military may have postponed a planned operation, such as the free passage of US Navy ships in the Pacific.
According to the “Washington Post” quoted in the book, Milly’s initial call to China was triggered by his assessment of intelligence. This assessment shows that China believes that the United States is preparing to launch an attack. The direct cause of the second call more than two months later was that he received a call from the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi on January 8. The latter asked him what safeguards could prevent a “no The stable president” launched a nuclear strike.
According to the call log cited by the newspaper, Pelosi said to Millie: “He (Trump) is a lunatic. You know he is mad.”
Milly assured Pelosi at the time that there were “many inspection procedures” in the system. According to the report, Milly agreed with the views expressed by Pelosi on the phone that Trump had experienced a mental decline after the election.
Respond to
Bob Woodward, one of the authors of “Danger”, is a well-known investigative journalist in the United States. He was first known for reporting on the “Watergate Incident.” The two authors stated that the book relied on interviews with 200 sources.
Once the revelation was disclosed, it caused an uproar. Milly’s office declined to comment, and White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre also declined to comment.
Image source,Getty Images
Profile photo of former U.S. President Trump and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley (October 7, 2019).
Trump issued a severely worded statement on Tuesday (September 14) local time, denouncing Milli as a “idiot” and calling the incident “fake news.”
But he said that if the report is true, “I think he will be tried for treason because he has dealt with his Chinese counterparts behind the president and told China that he will inform them of the’attack’. This is not allowed!”
“I never thought of attacking China, China knows this… In fact, I am the only president who has not involved the United States in war in decades,” Trump wrote.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio called on President Joe Biden to fire Milly immediately.
“I don’t need to tell you about the dangers of leaking classified information about U.S. military operations by senior military officers, but I want to emphasize that this subversive behavior weakens the president’s negotiations with foreign countries and the use of one of the country’s tools of power. Ability,” Rubio wrote in a letter to Biden.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz called the report “deeply concerning.” He told reporters, “I think the first step is for General Milly to answer what he said.”
Democratic Representative Liu Yunping (Ted Lieu) said that the fate of the world should not only depend on “a single general”. He called Milli “trying to stop an unstable president.”
He said that this further reflects the importance of the bill he and another senator proposed regarding the US President obtaining authorization from Congress before launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
Millie was the 39th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army and was nominated by then President Trump in 2018. He began to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. However, during the 2020 U.S. race protests and Trump’s re-election campaign, he was nominated by President Trump. There have been many disagreements with Trump. In June of this year, Trump, who had stepped down, called on him to resign.
Milli has been criticized for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan this year. He was accused of causing the Taliban to quickly regain control due to ineffective withdrawal of troops, as well as throwing the Kabul airport into chaos and explosions, causing a large number of casualties, including American soldiers.