ANALYSIS – Following Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping's ‘coronation' as leader-for-life at the recent CCP Congress, many experts believe China's timeline for invading Taiwan has greatly accelerated.
And that means a brutal war with China can start at any time.
As I noted earlier, in 2021 “the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the threat of China's targeting Taiwan was ‘manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next six years.'”
This puts China's invasion date sometime near 2027.
However, speaking at Stanford University in California last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Xi had made “a fundamental decision that the status quo was no longer acceptable” regarding Taiwan.
Blinken added that “Beijing was determined to pursue reunification on a much faster timeline.”
I argued this assessment could put China's target date to invade Taiwan, closer to 2024 or 2025, possibly coinciding with a likely overheated and possibly contested U.S. election.
However, the fact that the U.S. and NATO have been highly distracted and invested in countering Russia's invasion of Ukraine, could be factoring into Beijing's calculations.
And this could mean a sooner date.
Oriana Skylar Mastro, a fellow at Stanford University, and one of the world's leading authorities on China's war machine believes an invasion is now “more likely than not” within Xi's next five-year term as his military is “finalizing” its plans to take the island.
She argues that China is “all but guaranteed” to attack Taiwan in the wake of Jinping becoming leader-for-life, and it could be one of the bloodiest wars in history.
“What I would say is that some sort of use of force is all but guaranteed,” she told The Sun Online.
She assessed that Xi Jinping wanted to avoid military action during the run-up to the recent party congress but now “the constraint has been lifted” and the risks of an attack on Taiwan have dramatically increased.
The Sun reports:
Mastro warned against underestimating the human and economic cost Xi would be willing to bear in order to cement his place in Chinese history.
“The United States historically wants overwhelming force before they make any sort of move,” she said.
“While China definitely wants advantages, it doesn't feel it needs to minimise casualties to the level of the United States might feel to before it initiates such military campaigns.
“China's willing to tolerate high losses because they feel more strongly about it than the United States and autocrats are willing to keep fighting despite the losses.
“He's pretty willing to accept a short term high economic cost on the basis that in the long term, it wouldn't have a detrimental effect.”
Meanwhile, Taiwanese leaders warn an attack could come as early as next year, 2023.
Nikkei Asea reports:
Taiwan's top intelligence official warns that China could threaten war next year to coerce the Taiwanese government to agree to talks designed to bring the island democracy under Beijing's rule.
“2023 must also be closely watched. A lot of things and information are changing now,” said National Security Bureau Director-General Chen Ming-tong in reply to questions raised during a parliamentary session on Thursday. He referenced that China could also be preparing to attack Taiwan in 2025 and 2027.
Beijing is likely to threaten war in 2023 to force Taiwan to negotiate “unification,” he said, adding that a key factor is how much economic pressure the Chinese Community Party is facing from within China. “When they may need to divert internal pressure, there's a possibility of an attack on Taiwan.”
But Chief of U.S. Naval Operations Admiral Gilday this week said the threat may be even closer than that, stating the U.S. military must be ready to respond to Chinese aggression against Taiwan as soon as this year.
“When we talk about the 2027 window, in my mind, that has to be a 2022 window or potentially a 2023 window,” Gilday told U.S.-based think tank the Atlantic Council. “I can't rule that out.” ALD
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
The whole world is on the verge of war. Get ready.
Hopefully it will result in the draft and all the woke, fat, tatted will get a nice taste of reality. However, they will probably riot and maybe burn down Portland or New York. I expect an invasion/inflitration from the North, Vancouver BC is loaded with Shyknees and they practically own that part of Canada. I am pretty sure Castreaux will just let them walk in with a nice payoff. The Shyknees also own a LOT of farms and food processing in the USA. If the USA goes to war the USA will need to nationalize and free up all ShyKnees owned resources. Frankly, they wont do it because the Democrats will WANT TO LOSE THAT WAR, thus cementing the globalist plan to have the Shyknees become teh number 1 force on the planet. By design, you will own nothing and be happy under a Shyknees style system of social credit scoring. This is what all the sheeple deserve for their complacency and apathy and celebritard worthship.
THEY seem to own or run a significant portion of Toronto, Ontario as well.
The hypocrites in Washington have already stated that a draft would only include biological males. Isn’t that convenient?
I`m not interested in overpriced EVs take care of the problems here. Close the border and either go propane or alcohol. Stay out of our personal business.
If the Pentagon reads this briefing, maybe they might cancel a few of their LGBTQ tea parties.
To protect our economy and especially our tech sector, we need to pass a law that no company may produce more than 1/3 of any component needed in any single country (other than the US) without a waiver from the FTC. In this way, if China decides to play hardball, we just move our sourcing to another country (i.e. Vietnam, Phillipines, etc) and can even stop economic trade with China if needed. We need to prepare for this now and not “react”.
Is there anything in Biden’s foreign or military policies that would forestall moves on Taiwan by China? I think our shutdown of our oil industry, time spent on Woke Training by our military, emphasis on abortion, Jan 6th, and Biden’s personal pecuniary interest in China investments all do not bode well for our response to any action by Xi.