Former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said that the likelihood of full scale Chinese invasion in Taiwan was very low, but the former could bring the latter “to its knees” using economic and cyber measures.
While speaking on a podcast, ‘One Decision Podcast’, with former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlov and journalist Julia Macfarlane, former US secretary Gates said that he did not believe in China invading Taiwan. He said that the Chinese have never gone for an amphibious operation as it would require a lot of softening up.
Robert Gates said that the amphibious operation would have to be huge.
During the podcast, many issues including Russia’s invasion in Ukraine were discussed. Gates said that the Russians headed for Kyiv were highly confident as they had five days of logistics support and had even packed their ceremonial uniforms for a victory parade in Kyiv.
The former US defence secretary said that the Russians had thought that the local administrations north of Kyiv would welcome them; they had paid them off assuming that they would side with the Russians. However, he added, Ukrainian services had told these administrations to act as they were accepting the payoff.
