Book: Top US officer feared Trump could order China strike

By JONATHAN LEMIRE
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fearful of Donald Trump’s actions in his final weeks as president, the United States’ top military officer twice called his Chinese counterpart to assure him that the two nations would not suddenly go to war. A senior defense official acknowledged the conversations after they were described in excerpts from the forthcoming book “Peril” by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. The book says Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army that he would warn his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack. Details were first reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday.