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Steve Bannon, White House chief strategist, also predicted the US will fight another "major" war in the Middle East.

He says the former will be caused by the South China Sea dispute, which has seen Beijing claim 90% of a strategic waterway.

To reinforce its claim, it's built artificial islands, dumping sand on top of reefs to create space for landing strips and fortifications.

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China's claim to the sea was dismissed by an international tribunal last year, a ruling which Beijing rejected as "naturally null and void".

Now it's emerged that Bannon believes the dispute will end in war, predicting last April: "We’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years.

"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 US in front of our face – and you understand how important face is – and say it’s an ancient territorial sea."

It comes after China declared war on the US was now a "practical reality" in a statement on the People’s Liberation Army website.

And to prove the point, China has moved nuclear-capable missiles to its Heilongjiang region – it's closest point to the US.

President Donald Trump has already angered China by talking to the president of Taiwan on the phone in December.

Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory so, out of respect, the US severed ties with the island nation back in 1979.

The bombshell phone call left China's state-run Global Times newspaper calling for the army to take Taiwan by force.

Trump's Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has also threatened to deny access to several artificial islands in the South China Sea.

Ashley Townshend, a fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States studies centre, told the Guardian it's a move that would lead to war.

Bannon, predicting renewed conflict in the Middle East as well, said: "We’re clearly going into, I think, a major shooting war in the Middle East again.”