Xi Jinping Revealed Once Asking China's Military To Be Ready For War Amid Tensions With The West

JAKARTA - Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of 2020 once urged his country's military to prepare for a possible war amid a dispute with Western countries.

Xi said the inevitable view of the decline in relations with the United States and Europe had begun, according to internal documents reported by ANTARA from Kyodo, Tuesday, July 25.

In a closed meeting with the Communist Party's Central Military Commission, Xi stressed that if one local conflict occurs and continues, it could spread to a wider area, although he denies the possibility of a new world war.

However, the document released in June last year shows something different.

The document, which contains Xi's statement at the December 21, 2020 meeting of commissions he leads and has been used as textbooks for senior military officials and Chinese communist parties.

Although China and the US have recently stepped up talks and eased tensions over a number of hot issues, the document shows Beijing remains very vigilant over possible military clashes.

China-US relations worsened significantly in December 2020 when the Donald Trump administration sharply criticized China for the spread of the new coronavirus, which was first discovered in late 2019 in the city of Wuhan, central China.

At the meeting, Xi referred to the weakening influence of the West as the opposite of China's growing power. He mentioned that "East Korea shines, the West dims", and calls it a "historic trend".

However, the Chinese leader said the situation in which the West has a competitive advantage "is fundamentally unchanged," refers to the unavoidable risk of clashes between Western countries and China, which has strengthened its military and economic powers.

Based on these views, Xi stressed the importance of the Chinese military to "prepare themselves for the outbreak of war and its chain reactions,".

Xi ordered troops to be "always ready to fight: to safeguard national sovereignty and interests", according to the document.

Xi's comments are believed to be made in a hypothetical contemplation regarding the state of emergency in Taiwan.

Beijing, which considers Taiwan a rebel province that should be united with mainland China if necessary by force, recently stepped up military pressure in the region.

According to the document,Xi also admitted in a meeting in 2020 that anti-China forces in the West were aimed at overthrowing the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and he showed strong distrust of the United States.