Russia’s experience in Ukraine is affecting China’s calculations on how and when it may decide to invade Taiwan, the CIA chief said Wednesday.
Appearing at the Aspen Security Forum, Central Intelligence Agency director Bill Burns downplayed speculation that Chinese President Xi Jinping could move to Taiwan after a key party meeting communist at the end of the year.
“The risks of this are greater, it seems to us, the deeper into this decade,” Burns said, adding, “I would not underestimate President Xi’s determination to assert China’s control over self-government.” of Taiwan.
Burns said China was “restless” when it watched Russia’s five-month war in Ukraine, which it described as a “strategic failure” for President Vladimir Putin, as it hoped to overthrow the Kyiv government in a week.
“Our sense is that it probably affects less the question of whether the Chinese leadership could choose a few years later to use force to control Taiwan, but how and when they would do so,” Burns said.
He said it is believed that China observed from Ukraine that “they do not achieve quick and decisive victories with disappointing force.”
“I suspect the lesson the Chinese leaders and army learn is that you have to build up an overwhelming force if you think about it in the future,” he said.
It is likely that China has also learned that it must “control the information space” and “do everything it can to strengthen its economy in the face of the potential for sanctions,” he added.
Burns, in line with previous U.S. assessments, said the United States does not believe Beijing is offering military support to Russia despite rhetorical support.
He said China has increased purchases of Russian energy, but appears to be careful not to incur Western sanctions.
China considers Taiwan’s self-government to be part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary.
Defeated nationalists from China fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the continent’s civil war, but since then the island has become a vibrant democracy and a leading technological power.
Speaking to Burns at the Rocky Mountain forum, China’s ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, said Beijing still preferred “peaceful reunification.”
But he accused the U.S. of supporting “independent” forces in Taiwan, where President Tsai Ing-wen has asserted the island’s separate identity.
“No conflict and no war is the biggest consensus between China and the United States,” Qin said. But the United States is “emptying and blurring” its stated policy of recognizing only Beijing, he said.
“Only by strictly adhering to the one-China policy, only by joining hands to limit and oppose Taiwan’s independence, will we be able to have peaceful reunification,” he said.
Under a law passed by Congress when Washington changed recognition of Taipei to Beijing in 1979, the United States must provide weapons to Taiwan for self-defense.
U.S. President Joe Biden said in May that the U.S. was willing to use force to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack, seeming to get rid of long-standing U.S. ambiguity about whether to compromise militarily. , although the White House quickly returned to its comments.
Biden told reporters on Wednesday he hoped to speak with Xi “in the next 10 days.”