Taiwan doubts China’s Xi will have the ability to invade by 2027

TAIPEI – Chinese President Xi Jinping is unlikely to have the capability to conduct a successful invasion of Taiwan by 2027, according to a top Taiwanese security official, casting doubts on the progress of

Beijing’s military modernisation plans.

Taiwan will continue to delay the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) invasion timetable by strengthening its defence capabilities, Mr Wellington Koo, the head of the island’s National Security Council, said on Monday at a briefing in Taipei. 

“I do not think it will happen in the near future or at least within one to two years,” Mr Koo said of a Chinese invasion. “If China needs to carry out amphibious landing operations to take Taiwan, I don’t think it will have such capabilities by 2027.”

Mr Koo declined to pinpoint when an attack could happen, saying only that the island that China claims as its own does not see Beijing making invasion preparations. China is already facing uncertainty next year from its own economic downturn, while the world must also deal with the United States election, and wars in Europe and the Middle East, he added.

Mr Xi is seeking to build a “world-class force” by 2027, a deadline that coincides with the 100th anniversary of the PLA. General Mark Milley, the then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last year that Beijing’s military will not be ready to invade Taiwan for “some time.” His successor Charles Q. Brown Jr said last week he doubts Beijing plans to try to take Taiwan militarily.  

Taiwan is separated from China by more than 160km of ocean, and its rugged coastline would make an amphibious invasion challenging. While China has the world’s largest navy by number of warships, its forces are largely untested.

Mr Koo said Taiwan would use mobile weapons such as anti-ship missiles, Himars rocket systems, drones and Javelin anti-tank systems to make China’s landing operations more difficult in the event of an invasion. The US will bring forward a Himars shipment by one year to 2026.

Earlier this month, Mr Koo said Washington is taking steps to speed up the delivery of American weapons systems to Taiwan that have been delayed by factors, including shipments to Ukraine. 

US President Joe Biden is expected to touch on Taiwan when he

meets Mr Xi this week at a leaders’ summit in San Francisco.

He has repeatedly

vowed to defend Taiwan from any Chinese invasion,

in comments that have angered Beijing and brought new uncertainty to Washington’s longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity” over the island.

Mr Koo said Taipei and the US are discussing a possible meeting between Mr Biden and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing founder Morris Chang at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where Mr Chang is Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s special envoy. At last year’s conference, Mr Chang had a brief chat with Mr Xi that did not touch on Taiwan Strait tensions. 

Taiwan’s security cooperation with the US remains close, he said, with Washington pushing Taipei on defence reform, whole-society resilience and the construction of asymmetric warfare capabilities. 

“The US has a stronger sense of urgency than Taiwan,” Mr Koo said. Bloomberg