2015 Gen. Milley: "China Is Not An Enemy"

MILLEY: "You alluded to it in a previous question, China’s not an enemy. And I think that’s important for people to clearly understand. China is a rising power. China has been a rising power since Deng Xiaoping in '79 and they've been clicking off at 10 percent growth for almost 30 years, and they dropped down to about 7 percent last year, too, and they’ll probably drop again and come into that range of normalcy and 3 to 5 percent growth, but that’s still significant economic growth. And there’s been a really large historic change from a north Atlantic-based global economy to now it’s proceeding to be a north Pacific-based global economy. So, with respect to China, what normally happens historically, it’s not in all cases but in most cases, where you have economic growth of that magnitude, typically follows military power. And that’s what we’re seeing. We're seeing a significant increase in Chinese military capabilities over the last 10 to 20 years, and they are going to develop themselves and are developing themselves into a great power. That is not to say, however, that they are an enemy."