Former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Robert Gates predicted Sunday that the chances of China invading Taiwan were “pretty low, particularly over the next several years,” despite Chinese President Xi Jinping’s bellicose rhetoric toward the self-governing island.

“I don’t think they want to go in and attack Taiwan. They don’t want to destroy the very chip factories they want to take over,” Gates told CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” adding that he thought China would prefer to exercise control via “a Hong Kong-style transition over a period of time.”

Successive US administrations have named 2027 as the year when the People’s Republic of China would have built up enough military resources to potential launch a massive attack on Taiwan, and a Pentagon report released in December of last year found that Beijing’s People’s Liberation Army “continues to refine multiple military options to force Taiwan unification by brute force.”

“Those options include, most dangerously, an amphibious invasion, firepower strike, and possibly a maritime blockade.”

Gates said he was less sure of China’s military capabilities.

“There isn’t one single Chinese general or admiral today that has one day of combat experience,” he told host Margaret Brennan. “The last time these guys fought was 1979 and the North Vietnamese, the Vietnamese gave them a bloody nose. Xi has fired all these generals. There are now no generals left on the Central Military Commission, that kind of oversees the whole thing. He’s fired — and they’re slated for execution — his last two defense ministers.

“So this is not an outfit that I think he has enormous confidence in right now, and he’s been fighting against corruption in their military ever since he became president of China [in 2013]. So I’m not sure that he thinks his military is the greatest in the world.”