China does not plan to invade Taiwan next year and seeks to control the nation without the use of force, the US intelligence community said on Wednesday.
The assessment in the intelligence agencies’ annual report on global threats comes as Beijing has stepped up pressure on Taiwan with frequent military drills, even as US President Donald Trump has downplayed the risk of Chinese military action while he is in office.
The Pentagon late last year said that the US military believed China was preparing to be able to win a fight for Taiwan by next year, the centenary of the founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and was refining options to take Taiwan by “brute force” if needed.
Photo: EPA
“China, despite its threat to use force to compel unification if necessary and to counter what it sees as a US attempt to use Taiwan to undermine China’s rise, prefers to achieve unification without the use of force, if possible,” the US intelligence agencies said in the report.
The US “assesses that Chinese leaders do not currently plan to execute an invasion of Taiwan in 2027, nor do they have a fixed timeline for achieving unification,” the report said.
It reiterated previous views that the PLA was making “steady, but uneven” progress on capabilities it could use to capture Taiwan.
Beijing would almost certainly consider a variety of factors in deciding whether and how to pursue military approaches to unification, the report said, listing factors such as “PLA readiness, the actions and politics of Taiwan, and whether or not the US will militarily intervene on Taiwan’s behalf,” the report said.
Chinese officials acknowledge that a full-scale amphibious invasion of Taiwan would be extremely challenging and risky, particularly if the US intervenes, it said.
A conflict over Taiwan could disrupt US access to trade and critical semiconductors, unsettle global supply chains, and spark market turmoil, it said.
“Even without Washington’s involvement, US and global economic and security interests would face significant and costly consequences, with tech supply chains disrupted and investor fear across markets,” it said.
In addition, a protracted war with the US risks unprecedented economic costs to the US, Chinese and global economies, it added.
Beijing yesterday said that the US should “stop hyping” China as a threat.
“The US should ... speak and act cautiously on the Taiwan issue,” should “correct their understanding of China and stop hyping up the China threat theory,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) told a news conference.
In Taipei, a national security official yesterday said that while Beijing has pushed back its timetable for a potential attack on Taiwan, the threat remains far from over.
Political interference and “united front” efforts are expected to continue, with China adjusting its expansion goals and timeline in line with evolving strategic conditions and realities on the ground, said the official on condition of anonymity.
US intelligence assessments are ongoing and continuously updated, they said.
For this year, the view that China might be delaying its timeline for an invasion of Taiwan rests on two main factors, they said.
First, purges within the Chinese military over the past two years reflect deep-seated corruption and structural problems in command under an authoritarian system, they said, adding that the actions have also significantly undermined the PLA’s ability to integrate and develop joint combat capabilities.
As the purges continue, their effects on equipment modernization, internal discipline and overall morale have forced Chinese decisionmakers to prioritize internal stability above all else, the official said.
Second, in the past few months, several international conflicts have highlighted a stark gap between China’s vaunted military equipment and tactics, and the reality on the ground, they said.
The shortfall has come as a major shock to the Chinese military and its top decisionmakers, as it underscores the potential outcomes if the PLA were to face US forces or comparable equipment in a conflict, they said.
Meanwhile, the report said that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could bring about a Japanese military response departed from the rhetoric of previous Japanese leaders.
However, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara yesterday told a news conference that “the [Japanese] government’s position of judging an existential crisis situation with all the information it gathers is consistent with the past.”
“The assessment that there has been a major shift is not accurate,” Kihara added.
Additional reporting by AFP
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
‘CRITICAL MOMENT’: Any delay in the passage of the remaining funds would weaken Taiwan’s security and play into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, the AIT said While welcoming the Legislative Yuan’s approval of a supplementary defense budget, the US Department of State said that further delays to Taiwan military spending are a “concession” to China. The remarks came after the legislature on Friday passed the budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of military equipment from the US, with total spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.82 billion). One package allocates NT$300 billion for arms sales approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, while the other sets aside NT$480 billion for an arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The
RSS