US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday.
“The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona.
Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US currently would be able to defeat China in a conflict over Taiwan, it is quickly losing that advantage due to China outpacing it in the production of warships and submarines, he said.
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In particular, the US had “key advantages over China in undersea capabilities, as well as superior capabilities in space and weapons that counter space assets, but ... China was building weapons systems, including warships, at a much faster pace than the US,” he was quoted by the FT as saying.
On whether China might be deterred from taking military action against Taiwan, Paparo said it depended on several factors, including the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) level of military readiness, Beijing’s assumptions about Taiwan’s defensive capabilities and the probability of foreign assistance to Taiwan, the FT wrote.
Separately, in an interview yesterday with the Wall Street Journal, US Army Pacific Commanding General Ronald Clark said that five years ago he would not have thought that China today would hold rehearsals of a blockade of Taiwan, “but now it is commonplace.”
“China’s aggressive behavior has made the environment more dangerous” than it was when he was posted in the Indo-Pacific three years ago, he said.
The PLA has since 2022 staged drills to surround Taiwan and simulate cutting it off from the world.
“[These exercises] give us an opportunity to really understand how they would go about something like a blockade or potentially a cross-strait invasion,” Clark said.
The US is building specialized units known as Multi-Domain Task Forces to counter the PLA’s “anti-access/area-denial” capabilities.
Key to this strategy is the new Typhon missile system, Clark said, adding: “If it gives them [Beijing] pause ... let them have it.”
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