Beijing could attack Taipei in 2024, not in 2027

Admiral Michael Gilday anticipates the window of time for a possible Chinese invasion. Taiwan’s forecasts were for 2025. In the next two years, Washington must deliver a significant batch of anti-ship missiles to Taiwan. Secretary of State Blinken: China is pursuing “reunification at a faster pace.”

Taipei () – China could invade Taiwan in 2024 and not in 2027, as the Pentagon had planned. This was stated by Admiral Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations for the US Navy. In March 2021, Admiral Phil Davidson, then head of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, had stated that the Chinese could try to retake the island in the next six years.

In Beijing’s eyes, Taiwan is a “rogue province” and it has never ruled out reconquering it by force. Taiwan has been de facto independent of China since 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists took refuge there after losing the civil war on the mainland against the communists, making the island the heir to the Republic of China founded in 1912. .

Gilday shared his forecast on October 19 at a conference organized by the Atlantic Council: he anticipates not only the “Davidson window”, but also Taiwan’s. In October last year, Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng warned that China would reach the capacity to launch a “full-scale” attack on the island in 2025.

Gilday’s statements are consistent with what reported in late 2021: the possibility of Chinese aggression on Taiwan before Taipei receives a major delivery of US-supplied anti-ship missiles and scheduled for 2023 and 2024.

In his speech, Gilday stressed that the US fleet must be prepared for a war scenario in the Taiwan Strait. And this is not because of Xi Jinping’s bellicose words at the opening of the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Partybut because, in the last 20 years, Beijing has carried out its objectives ahead of schedule.

In the upper echelons of the US government there seems to be uncertainty about the Taiwan question. To soften the blow after Gilday’s statements, the White House National Security Council spokesman declared yesterday that “there is no reason” for a conflict in the Taiwan Strait. However, on October 17, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that China is pursuing “reunification at a faster pace.”

Under the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States is committed to defending the island. Adopted in 1979 after the formal diplomatic recognition of Communist China, the law does not specify the real nature of Washington’s commitment to Taiwan: a “strategic ambiguity” that generates ongoing tensions with Beijing.