China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027, a US report has found.
Beijing is refining its military options to take the territory by “brute force” via tactics that could include launching strikes up to 2,000 nautical miles from China, the Pentagon said.
The report into Chinese military ambitions, obtained by Reuters, noted that Beijing has probably loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles across its new three silo fields.
The findings will probably raise concerns in Washington after a US government assessment in November found that China would defeat the US military in a war over Taiwan.
China, which views Taiwan as its own territory, has never ruled out using force to “reunify” with the island.
Beijing has described reports of a military build-up as an effort to “smear and defame China and deliberately mislead the international community”.
But the Pentagon report found that “China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027”, adding that strikes “could seriously challenge and disrupt US presence in or around a conflict in the Asia-Pacific region”.
The draft document also did not identify a potential target for the more than 100 solid-fuelled DF-31 ICBMs in silo fields close to China’s border with Mongolia. The Pentagon had previously reported the existence of the fields but not the number of missiles loaded.
Last month, Donald Trump, the US president, said he may be working on a plan to denuclearise with China and Russia. However, the report said Beijing did not appear to be interested in cooperating.
“We continue to see no appetite from Beijing for pursuing such measures or more comprehensive arms control discussions,” it said.
It added that China’s nuclear warhead stockpile was still in the low 600s in 2024, which reflected “a slower rate of production when compared to previous years”.
But it noted that China’s nuclear expansion was ongoing and it was on track to have over 1,000 warheads by 2030.
About the Author
