On The Story, Rep. Mike Gallagher provides the most recent information on anti-American threats and potential invasions of Taiwan.
NEW Fox News articles can now be heard on audio! EXCLUSIVE: Current and former officials familiar with U.S. and allied intelligence told Fox News that China could invade Taiwan within the next 18 months, suggesting a particularly “dangerous” window between the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party this November and the following U.S. presidential election in 2024.
According to two former senior officials who spoke to Fox News, the intelligence indicates that China may be considering an amphibious assault and military invasion of Taiwan during that time.
“China has always had and always has had a strategy for an amphibious assault and military invasion of Taiwan, and we have always known this. One former senior intelligence official who is familiar with U.S. intelligence and has reviewed intelligence belonging to a U.S. ally in the Indo-Pacific told Fox News that if they are unsuccessful in coming together politically, they will do so with force.
On July 28, 2022, President Biden shared a picture of himself on the phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Washington, DC)
The person stated, “What is different now is that we have intelligence that this has changed from an ambiguous, undefined scenario to a belief that there is a window of opportunity in the next 18 months. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the window of opportunity occurs under the Biden administration,” said the speaker.
The visit to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is being used as a “pretext” for escalating Chinese aggressiveness toward Taiwan, but the former senior Trump administration official told Fox News that this is “not the underlying cause of it” and warned that the “Davidson Window” is “closing.”
Tuesday, August 2, 2022, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, center, poses for pictures after landing in Taipei, Taiwan. Pelosi, the highest-ranking American official to visit the self-ruled island claimed by China in 25 years, landed in Taiwan on Tuesday night despite warnings from Beijing of dire consequences. (AP) via Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Adm. Philip Davison, a former commander of American forces in the Indo-Pacific, stated in testimony last year that China might invade Taiwan in the following six years, by 2027.
The official noted that the opportunity could close by January 2025 at the conclusion of the presidential transition period: “The window is now between the Party Congress and the next U.S. presidential election.” “I believe that the next two years are extremely dangerous.”
In November, the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Congress is anticipated to take place, at which President Xi Jinping is anticipated to be re-elected.
The White House National Security Council said via a representative to Fox News that the US “will not seek and does not want a crisis.”
“We are ready to control whatever Beijing decides to do. The NSC spokesperson told Fox News, “We won’t engage in saber-rattling, and we’re not looking to escalate. We’re going to remain stable and firm at the same time. We won’t be discouraged from conducting our business as usual in the Western Pacific’s skies and seas.
The spokesperson continued, “Consistent with our commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States will continue to assist Taiwan and defend a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
We keep in close contact with our partners and allies. Additionally, we are still in contact with Beijing, the spokeswoman stated. “We will continue supporting cross-Strait peace and stability as we have been doing.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is also the general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the chairman of the Central Military Commission, speaks at an important symposium while visiting Renmin University of China on April 25, 2022, in Beijing, the country’s capital. Xinhua/Ju Peng via Getty Images )
The former senior Trump administration official, however, told Fox News that “the likelihood of invasion has increased dramatically with China perceiving the United States is in a weakened position,” citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Biden administration’s “surrender” of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August 2021, which led to “only half-measure sanctions being put on the Russian Federation.”
Additionally, the official claimed that Xi has grown more confident as a result of “internal problems” in the United States, such as crime in many American cities, “the lack of control” at the Southern border, and the “failures” of the Biden administration’s energy program.
According to the official, China fears the election of “another leader that could return to a more robust, peace through strength foreign policy and stronger internal programs,” and highlighted that the invasion could occur before the next president is sworn in in 2025.
According to a Biden administration official, China “would love nothing more than for the U.S. government to still be bogged down in a 20-year war, still committing billions of dollars, U.S. troops, and have our military focused on another country’s civil war. This is in response to criticisms of the current administration’s foreign policy and its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“We have been able to relocate our forces and refocus our efforts to other areas of the world by being able to withdraw our personnel from Afghanistan,” the official added. Leaving Afghanistan put the United States “in a much stronger position on the geopolitical stage when it comes to our strategic competitiveness with China or with any other major concerns across the world,” the person continued, adding that the Biden administration “freed up resources.”
Heino Klinck, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, claimed the United States “had failed to deter adversaries within the last 18 months” in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday.
Klinck said that he had considered 2024 to be a “particularly perilous year,” saying that if anything, “the United States has been prevented from firmly backing its friends and allies internationally.”
The People’s Liberation Army “will move against Taiwan when the Chinese Communist Party directs it to, regardless of timing,” Klinck emphasized, adding that “it is because it is not only the election in the United States, but it is also the presidential election in Taiwan.”
He told Fox News: “I view 2024 as dangerous because I think the CCP, especially President Xi Jinping, will see it as a possible window of opportunity because of the U.S. election, and because he probably perceives that the United States is going to shy away from an international crisis during a presidential election.
Klinck is currently a senior advisor to the National Bureau of Asian Research and formerly worked as a U.S. military attache at the American embassy in Beijing.
On March 4, 2022, in Beijing, China, red flags fly in front of the Great Hall of the People before the annual two sessions. The 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will begin its fifth session on March 4. (Image courtesy of VCG/VCG/Getty Images) )
He added: “I also believe he believes the presumed next president of Taiwan will push Taiwan closer to independence.
As China prepares for a “possible escalation,” current Biden administration officials told Fox News that the situation is fluid and that they are actively monitoring it. According to officials, they are watching how the situation develops over the next few months and how far China will go.
According to officials, they are concentrating on what the potential implications of the increased danger could be for Taiwan, for U.S.-Chinese ties, and for several crucial businesses that may be affected.
Joint military actions are launched by the People’s Liberation Army around the island of Taiwan. China strongly upholds its independence and integrity. (Chinese People’s Liberation Army)
John Kirby, the White House’s strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, stated on Tuesday that Beijing had “positioned itself to take further moves” even before Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan this week, and that they were likely to do so going forward.
In order to conduct military drills, the Chinese have currently established a number of closure zones surrounding Taiwan. According to Klinck, some of these closure zones “encroach towards Taiwanese territorial seas.”
FILE – On Wednesday, July 27, 2022, Taiwan’s armed troops are seen conducting anti-landing drills while participating in the yearly Han Kuang military exercises close to New Taipei City. (AP, File) through Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (National Defense Ministry of Taiwan)
This is the first time that military drills have been conducted east of Taiwan, Klinck said Fox News.
The Chinese are attempting to convince Taiwan that its territorial seas do not belong to it, and they will demonstrate this point by holding exercises there—something they have never done before, according to Klinck. “They’ve previously established closed zones and held drills there. On Taiwan’s east coast, they have never done it.
Months ago, a top Pentagon official raised the alarm that it is “only a matter of time” before a “major incident or accident” occurs in the Indo-Pacific. Biden administration officials have been warning of increased Chinese aggression for months.
On June 5, 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping shook hands at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. Evgenia Novozhenina for Reuters, pool Evgenia Novozhenina/REUTERS/Pool
Ely Ratner, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, acknowledged last month that the PLA’s aggressive behavior in the Indo-Pacific has “increased considerably,” with dozens of threatening episodes in only the first half of this year.
The Pentagon’s concerns come just days after Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley ordered his staff to gather data on exchanges between the American and Chinese forces over the previous five years.
Furthermore, the order comes as senior members of the intelligence community are warning of Beijing’s threat to the United States.
The “greatest long-term threat” to American economic and national security, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, is China, he claimed earlier this month.
Police in Taiwan are now on high alert after being subjected to numerous cyberattacks. On Wednesday, August 3, 2022, a photo was taken at the Jing-Mei Human Rights Memorial and Cultural Park in Taipei, Taiwan. (I-Hwa Cheng/Getty Images for Bloomberg) )
The National Counterintelligence and Security Center also issued a warning this month, stating that state and local leaders are “at-risk” of being “manipulated” by the Chinese Communist Party to support “hidden” agendas, as China seeks to target them in order to advocate for Beijing-friendly federal policies.
A similar warning was given to Wrays by CIA Director William Burns in April, who also noted that China has been “a quiet partner” in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine.
At the time, Burns referred to China as a “formidable competitor lacking in neither ambition nor capacity,” saying that China is “in many respects, the most significant test the CIA has ever faced.”
Fox News Digital’s politics reporter is Brooke Singman. Her email address is Brooke.Singman@Fox.com, and her Twitter handle is @BrookeSingman.
