US Talks Itself out of War With China

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The year is symbolic; 2027 is the centennial of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and a year in which Xi Jinping likely plans to claim a fourth uncontested term as the country’s most powerful leader in a generation. He needs something to show for it, the theory goes. It matters to the United States because democratically governed Taiwan, which China has long claimed as its own, is a top trading partner and the world’s leading supplier of advanced computer chips. A Taiwan Strait crisis would crush the global economy and take America down with it, current and former U.S. officials have warned. But U.S. officials believe Beijing isn’t ready to attack its democratic neighbor, based on their latest reading of the tea leaves, despite what they say is Xi’s order for the PLA to be capable of launching such a mission next year. The question they ought to be asking is whether China’s leaders were ever willing to risk it all in the first place. Opening the ‘Davidson Window’ It was nearly six years ago that Admiral Philip Davidson, then in charge of the U.S. Pacific Command, warned that a Taiwan Strait crisis could happen before the end of the decade, possibly in 2027. His testimony in 2021 in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee became the strategic time frame known as the "Davidson window." His warning was part of a budget request to fund more defensive preparations in the Pacific, where front-line U.S. territory such as Guam could become targets of preemptive Chinese missile strikes to deter U.S. involvement. The logic was sound. Two years later, Bill Burns, then-director of the CIA, reaffirmed the 2027 timeline but said having the military capability wasn’t the same as having the political intent to use it. Later, other former U.S. officials including former defense chief Lloyd Austin and Admiral John Aquilino—Davidson’s successor—said a conflict with China was neither imminent nor inevitable. The significance of 2027 didn’t come from nowhere, however. China’s goal is to modernize the PLA by next year. By 2035, it wants a modern, high-tech fighting force capable of winning a regional conflict. And by 2049—the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China—Beijing wants a "world-class" military to rival the United States. Don’t Ignore Beijing’s Hurdles China’s own operational challenges in the event of an invasion of Taiwan are huge and have been known for decades. To execute an amphibious assault on a greater scale than the Allied landings at Normandy in World War II, Chinese forces would need to cross 110 miles of unpredictable waters. These are only truly suitable for navigation two months each year, in April and October, according to Ian Easton, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College who authored The Chinese Invasion Threat in 2017. Taiwan’s defensive advantages, including limited coastal terrain for Chinese troops to establish an effective beachhead, are among the obstacles Beijing must overcome, before it factors in a likely U.S. and allied military response to preparations that satellites would spot months ahead. President Donald Trump has publicly questioned the wisdom of defending Taiwan with U.S. forces, but his military interventions in Venezuela and Iran this year would’ve changed the calculus for Chinese strategists tasked with predicting his next move. Add to that the long-standing U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity, which neither commits nor rules out American military involvement in any cross-strait crisis, and America’s leaders suddenly have a lot of room to maneuver. And then come the purges. Xi has gutted his military top brass in a sweeping campaign to root out graft and, more importantly, disloyalty. The already small Central Military Commission, the high command which he chairs, now only has one other member, having shrunk from 11 when he took power in 2012, to seven in 2017 and five in 2025, midway through his third term. The shake-up has reached all corners of the Chinese armed forces; over 100 senior officials and hundreds more low- and mid-level military officers have been caught in the web, according to analysis published this year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The number of personnel removed likely has implications for the PLA’s progress toward its 2027 modernization goals," the Department of Defense said in its latest China military power report. "Despite plausible short-term impacts to readiness, China remains committed to its strategic goals, with the ongoing anticorruption campaign having the potential to improve PLA readiness in the long term." Locking In a Friendlier America Xi’s promise to meet Trump at least two more times this year, following a pair of high-profile summits in May and September, is the clearest sign that China is happy with the current state of competition with America. Beijing’s openness to granting more American access to the Chinese market via favorable trade deals is rubbing off on Trump, and U.S. public opinion on China is softening too. This year, only 38 percent of Americans said they would support sending U.S. troops to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs said in survey results released last month. Unlikely doesn’t mean impossible though. No one knows just how much pressure Xi will be under to justify his continued leadership of the Communist Party ahead of its 21st national congress next fall. What’s certain is that a failure to capture Taiwan, or a prolonged struggle akin to Trump’s Iran war, won’t help his cause. China isn’t giving anything away. It doesn’t like U.S. scrutiny of its invasion plans, but it has never renounced the use of force to achieve its aim of unifying Taiwan with the mainland. It works on its own timeline and will keep American and Taiwanese defense planners guessing. Trump said last year that Xi promised not to move on Taiwan during his current term, apparently echoing similar sentiments expressed to former President Joe Biden. Downplaying the threat can be tricky in Washington and Taipei as it can be mistaken for a lack of urgency. The Long Game The PLA has been training for a short, sharp war to take Taiwan to ensure that any late-arriving U.S. support for the island will be rendered pointless. But there’s no guarantee that a military that hasn’t fought a war since the 1970s can execute the mission—the risk may be too great to take. China’s preference has always been to win without a fight, by eroding Taiwan’s military and the population’s will to resist, and by undermining the island’s democratic institutions. It hopes—but can’t be confident—that Taiwan will elect a Beijing-friendly government in 2028. So, the next Taiwan Strait crisis probably won’t happen within the next 12 months, but that’s not an excuse for the U.S. and Taiwan to sit on their hands. China’s air force is testing sixth-generation warplanes; its navy is launching more ships than Western analysts can count; its rocket force can strike accurately at distances of up to 2,000 miles and its intercontinental-range ballistic missiles can reach even further. "Mission success for me is not to fight and win a war; it’s to provide a deterrent capability so that we never go to war in the first place," Admiral Samuel Paparo, the current PACOM commander, told Time magazine last month. "If I do my job right, history will never know my name," Paparo said….By John FengChina Editor

0ShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberSee more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.War with China may be coming, but not quite yet, according to U.S. officials who have been hitting snooze on a countdown to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2027. Now they think it won’t happen before 2028.

The year is symbolic; 2027 is the centennial of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and a year in which Xi Jinping likely plans to claim a fourth uncontested term as the country’s most powerful leader in a generation. He needs something to show for it, the theory goes.

It matters to the United States because democratically governed Taiwan, which China has long claimed as its own, is a top trading partner and the world’s leading supplier of advanced computer chips. A Taiwan Strait crisis would crush the global economy and take America down with it, current and former U.S. officials have warned.

But U.S. officials believe Beijing isn’t ready to attack its democratic neighbor, based on their latest reading of the tea leaves, despite what they say is Xi’s order for the PLA to be capable of launching such a mission next year. The question they ought to be asking is whether China’s leaders were ever willing to risk it all in the first place.

It was nearly six years ago that Admiral Philip Davidson, then in charge of the U.S. Pacific Command, warned that a Taiwan Strait crisis could happen before the end of the decade, possibly in 2027. His testimony in 2021 in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee became the strategic time frame known as the “Davidson window.”

His warning was part of a budget request to fund more defensive preparations in the Pacific, where front-line U.S. territory such as Guam could become targets of preemptive Chinese missile strikes to deter U.S. involvement.

The logic was sound. Two years later, Bill Burns, then-director of the CIA, reaffirmed the 2027 timeline but said having the military capability wasn’t the same as having the political intent to use it. Later, other former U.S. officials including former defense chief Lloyd Austin and Admiral John Aquilino—Davidson’s successor—said a conflict with China was neither imminent nor inevitable.

The significance of 2027 didn’t come from nowhere, however. China’s goal is to modernize the PLA by next year. By 2035, it wants a modern, high-tech fighting force capable of winning a regional conflict. And by 2049—the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China—Beijing wants a “world-class” military to rival the United States.

China’s own operational challenges in the event of an invasion of Taiwan are huge and have been known for decades. To execute an amphibious assault on a greater scale than the Allied landings at Normandy in World War II, Chinese forces would need to cross 110 miles of unpredictable waters. These are only truly suitable for navigation two months each year, in April and October, according to Ian Easton, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College who authored The Chinese Invasion Threat in 2017.

Taiwan’s defensive advantages, including limited coastal terrain for Chinese troops to establish an effective beachhead, are among the obstacles Beijing must overcome, before it factors in a likely U.S. and allied military response to preparations that satellites would spot months ahead.

President Donald Trump has publicly questioned the wisdom of defending Taiwan with U.S. forces, but his military interventions in Venezuela and Iran this year would’ve changed the calculus for Chinese strategists tasked with predicting his next move.

Add to that the long-standing U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity, which neither commits nor rules out American military involvement in any cross-strait crisis, and America’s leaders suddenly have a lot of room to maneuver.

And then come the purges. Xi has gutted his military top brass in a sweeping campaign to root out graft and, more importantly, disloyalty. The already small Central Military Commission, the high command which he chairs, now only has one other member, having shrunk from 11 when he took power in 2012, to seven in 2017 and five in 2025, midway through his third term.

The shake-up has reached all corners of the Chinese armed forces; over 100 senior officials and hundreds more low- and mid-level military officers have been caught in the web, according to analysis published this year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The number of personnel removed likely has implications for the PLA’s progress toward its 2027 modernization goals,” the Department of Defense said in its latest China military power report. “Despite plausible short-term impacts to readiness, China remains committed to its strategic goals, with the ongoing anticorruption campaign having the potential to improve PLA readiness in the long term.”

Xi’s promise to meet Trump at least two more times this year, following a pair of high-profile summits in May and September, is the clearest sign that China is happy with the current state of competition with America.

Beijing’s openness to granting more American access to the Chinese market via favorable trade deals is rubbing off on Trump, and U.S. public opinion on China is softening too. This year, only 38 percent of Americans said they would support sending U.S. troops to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs said in survey results released last month.

Unlikely doesn’t mean impossible though. No one knows just how much pressure Xi will be under to justify his continued leadership of the Communist Party ahead of its 21st national congress next fall. What’s certain is that a failure to capture Taiwan, or a prolonged struggle akin to Trump’s Iran war, won’t help his cause.

China isn’t giving anything away. It doesn’t like U.S. scrutiny of its invasion plans, but it has never renounced the use of force to achieve its aim of unifying Taiwan with the mainland. It works on its own timeline and will keep American and Taiwanese defense planners guessing.

Trump said last year that Xi promised not to move on Taiwan during his current term, apparently echoing similar sentiments expressed to former President Joe Biden. Downplaying the threat can be tricky in Washington and Taipei as it can be mistaken for a lack of urgency.

The PLA has been training for a short, sharp war to take Taiwan to ensure that any late-arriving U.S. support for the island will be rendered pointless. But there’s no guarantee that a military that hasn’t fought a war since the 1970s can execute the mission—the risk may be too great to take.

China’s preference has always been to win without a fight, by eroding Taiwan’s military and the population’s will to resist, and by undermining the island’s democratic institutions. It hopes—but can’t be confident—that Taiwan will elect a Beijing-friendly government in 2028.

So, the next Taiwan Strait crisis probably won’t happen within the next 12 months, but that’s not an excuse for the U.S. and Taiwan to sit on their hands.

China’s air force is testing sixth-generation warplanes; its navy is launching more ships than Western analysts can count; its rocket force can strike accurately at distances of up to 2,000 miles and its intercontinental-range ballistic missiles can reach even further.

“Mission success for me is not to fight and win a war; it’s to provide a deterrent capability so that we never go to war in the first place,” Admiral Samuel Paparo, the current PACOM commander, told Time magazine last month.

“If I do my job right, history will never know my name,” Paparo said.