US commander pushes back against colleagues ‘guessing’ Taiwan invasion date

The top US military commander in the Indo-Pacific has pushed back against colleagues that are “guessing” the date of a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Admiral John Aquilino, head of US Indo-Pacific command, on Tuesday told Congress the Chinese threat to Taiwan had increased but declined to endorse other top military brass who have suggested timelines for a possible conflict.

“I think everybody is guessing,” Aquilino told a House armed services committee hearing when asked about such warnings, including one from his predecessor, now retired Admiral Philip Davidson, who sparked alarm two years ago when he said China could move before 2027.

Last October, Admiral Mike Gilday, chief of naval operations, said the US must prepare for possible action before 2024. And in January, General Mike Minihan, former deputy Indo-Pacific commander, predicated the US and China would go to war in 2025.

“For me, it doesn’t matter what the timeline is . . . I’m responsible to prevent this conflict today and if deterrence were to fail to be able to fight and win,” said Aquilino. He stressed that the US defence department and industry needed to move more quickly to reduce the odds of a conflict.

Indo-Pacific command has $3.5bn in requests that the Biden administration did not include in its recent $842bn defence budget, which some critics say undermines the stance that China is the “pacing threat” for the US.

Aquilino said the US military currently “exceeds anything China can deliver” but said it had to “go faster” in some areas, including hypersonic weapons.

Asked if he believed the threat from China had grown, Aquilino replied: “The trends for the threat are in a wrong direction.”

Aquilino said Davidson had referred to 2027 because Chinese president Xi Jinping has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to develop sufficient capabilities by that date.

In February, CIA director William Burns said the US intelligence community believed Xi had ordered the Chinese military to “be ready” by 2027 to invade Taiwan.

In recent months, senior officials have played down the possibility of an imminent Chinese invasion as part of an effort to push back against what some fear is loose talk from top military officers.

The debate underscores concern about China’s increasingly assertive air and naval activity around Taiwan.

Asked when he believed Beijing would have sufficient military power to determine that it could attack Taiwan, Aquilino said it was not just a question of the “balance of forces” between the US and China.

“There’s a tonne of variables on what might motivate president Xi Jinping to take that action,” Aquilino said. “It’s our job to convince him every day, [that] it would be a bad choice.”

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