CIA Director Bill Burns said Wednesday that China is learning from Russia’s war in Ukraine to prepare for an attack against Taiwan.
“The question is not whether the Chinese leadership will use force against Taiwan in the coming years, but rather the opposite When and how they will do it“, Bill Burns said during a speech at the Aspen Security Forum in the United States.
The CIA director compared the risk to Chinese President Xi Jinping invading Taiwan before the end of the year, which some analysts believe is possible after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China in the fall.
“That risk appears to be increasing over the decade,” he noted.
The CIA director said China may be “disturbed” to watch the war in Ukraine, which he called a “strategic defeat” for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Beijing saw the Russian invasion as evidence that “quick and decisive victories cannot be achieved” without sufficient military capability.
“The lesson that Chinese leaders are learning is that to win you have to assemble a broad hegemonic force,” he said.
The CIA director, according to previous reports from Washington, assumed that China, despite its tacit support, did not provide military support to Russia in the war in Ukraine.
Taiwan, the island where the former Chinese government took refuge after the Communist Party took power on the mainland in 1949, considers itself the Republic of China and operates as a sovereign political entity.
However, Beijing considers Taiwan its own province and threatens to use force if the island declares independence. In recent years, incursions by Chinese military aircraft into the island’s air defense zone have intensified.
At the same forum in Aspen, China’s ambassador to the US said Beijing continues to support “peaceful reunification”.
“No conflict, no war: this is the most important consensus between China and the United States,” Qin Gang said, however, lamenting that the United States is gradually “destroying” its policy of recognizing Beijing as China’s sole country. Proper government.
“Only by truly respecting the ‘One China’ principle and resisting Taiwan independence can we achieve peaceful reunification,” he added.
