China’s growing military power in Asia has increased the danger Beijing will launch a war against a neighboring state, with Taiwan just one of several likely future targets, the admiral in charge of intelligence for the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific Command warned this week.
Rear Adm. Mike Studeman, the top intelligence officer, or J-2, for the East Asian command, said in a conference Wednesday that U.S. military forces are bolstering arms and equipment for when conflict could break out in the region over Taiwan or another American ally or partner.
“What are we warning about: It’s danger on all fronts,” Adm. Studeman told an online conference via telephone from the command’s headquarters in Hawaii. “This idea that it’s only a Taiwan scenario vs. many other areas where the Chinese are being highly assertive, coercive, is a failure in understanding complexity, because it’s not that simple.”
Adm. Studeman said it would be a mistake to wait to act until intelligence agencies receive a warning that China is preparing to launch an amphibious assault against Taiwan, the island nation China‘s Communist leaders have vowed to reunite with the mainland.
“That is one scenario and, frankly, it may not be the most likely,” he said. China’s Communist regime is placing pressure on “lots of its neighbors.”
China in recent months has engaged in disputes with India, Australia, Japan, Taiwan and countries around the South China Sea in what analysts say is an increase in bullying by Beijing. In the past, the leaders of the ruling Chinese Communist Party sought to avoid multiple entanglements with neighbors and the new assertiveness is seen as a sign of China’s growing power and military confidence.
Regarding Taiwan, China has engaged in low-intensity conflict against the island that has increased the dangers across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait. The campaign has involved information operations and economic pressure, Adm. Studeman said.
“It’s already a struggle underway,” he said. “Whether or not the Chinese resort to a military option is in question. To us, it’s only a matter of time, not a matter of ‘if,’ because if you understand the problem set, you understand that Taiwan will unlikely fold based on economic, and informational and diplomatic influence alone.”
The admiral was reflecting earlier comments by the former and current chiefs of the Indo-Pacific Command, who said in testimony to Congress earlier this year that China appears to be preparing for a move against Taiwan by 2030 or before. Adm. Studeman said the United States needs to approach countering China with the same type of effort used against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
“And we’re not there yet as a nation in understanding how to in fact employ our energy, our treasure to be able to grapple with” the danger, he said.
“Much of what we do,” he added, “is internal to us — ensuring that people are ready for a very bad day” if war breaks out.