Steve Bannon thinks war with China is imminent: "There's no doubt about that"

The United States will go to war with China in “five to 10 years” over the South China Sea dispute, according to Steve Bannon, who is President Donald Trump’s chief political strategist.

These comments by Bannon were made last March, but they resurfaced Thursday at a time when Washington and Beijing’s relations have soured after Trump questioned the "One China" policy and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said China should be barred from islands in the contested region.

“We’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years, aren’t we? There’s no doubt about that. They’re taking their sandbars and making basically stationary aircraft carriers and putting missiles on those. They come here to the United States in front of our face — and you understand how important face is — and say it’s an ancient territorial sea,” Bannon said on a radio show hosted for Breitbart in March 2016.

Last month, Tillerson aggravated the already tense relations between the two countries by saying that China should not be allowed access to the islands in the South China Sea.

“We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed,” Tillerson said.