Pentagon’s Asia commander seeks funds to deter China on Taiwan

WASHINGTON – The US military is quietly seeking to bolster its ability to deter or battle China over Taiwan, including with new warship-killing bombs and advanced sea mines, the head of US Indo-Pacific Command said in a report to Congress.

The 121-page document uses tougher language to describe Beijing’s military intentions than the wider Trump administration, which has been more conciliatory towards China, especially before President Donald Trump’s summit in Beijing with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. 

China’s People’s Liberation Army “is undergoing historic expansion across all domains and is training for two primary missions: forcing Taiwan unification and countering US and allied defence capabilities, with military readiness targeted by 2027”, Admiral Samuel Paparo said in a report to US lawmakers obtained by Bloomberg News.

The report details how military planners would deploy in Asia funds from the Trump administration’s record US$1.5 trillion (S$1.92 trillion) defence budget request. Adm Paparo urged lawmakers to approve the massive spending increase – up 44 per cent from the previous year – in order to “defend the homeland and defeat China’s misaligned strategy”. 

A key part of the budget request includes US$592 million for development, prototyping and procurement of a “Quicksink” seeker add-on that would turn Boeing’s GPS-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition bombs into a “low-cost, all-weather anti-ship weapon capable of sinking vessels by detonating beneath the waterline to break the ship’s keel”.

The report said Quicksink kits would help “counter numerically superior adversary fleets across the Indo-Pacific”, a clear reference to China, which has the world’s largest navy with more than 430 ships, according to the Congressional Research Service. By contrast, the US Navy has 291 combat vessels.

The report, dated April 6, also reiterates the year 2027 – symbolically important as the PLA’s 100th anniversary – as a key year for Chinese forces to be prepared to seize Taiwan.

An intelligence assessment released earlier in 2026 backed away from previous Pentagon projections that 2027 was the year by which China might attempt to take the island by force.

Another weapons programme called “Quickstrike” requests US$531 million for a family of “shallow water, aircraft-laid mines used against surface and subsurface targets”. 

Adm Paparo also highlighted another counter-China initiative called the “Clandestine Delivered Mine” programme, which uses existing submarine launch capabilities. 

That programme enables the US “to clandestinely emplace minefields in key areas”, and to “complement aerial mining capabilities” with new so-called Hammerhead mines – a device moored to the seabed that uses sensors to detect threats, and then launches a Mark 54 lightweight torpedo. 

The request notes the newer sea mines can help the US in “maintaining strategic control over critical waterways”, a capability that is newly relevant given the current US war against Iran has revolved around Tehran’s firm grip on the strategic Strait of Hormuz. 

Other notable new US technologies funded in the request are the “Cancun” programme that “provides critical electronic countermeasures” against China’s over-the-horizon radar systems, and a “Darknet” secure communications system.

The request also focuses on hypersonic weapons capabilities, including US$3 billion for hypersonic missiles for the army and navy, more than US$1 billion for the air force’s hypersonic cruise missile, US$951 million for the new “Blackbeard” low-cost hypersonic strike weapon, and US$779 million for the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon hypersonic projectile. BLOOMBERG