A former British military intelligence officer has said it is a case of ‘when not if’ China invades Taiwan as it continues to intimidate its neighbour.
Philip Ingram MBE, speaking under the heading ‘When Will World War 3 Start?’, gave a bleak appraisal of the tense situation in the Indo-Pacific.
Ingram, now a journalist and geopolitical analyst, likened China’s building of ‘invasion barges’ to Russia’s forward deployment of blood stocks in the logistical build-up to Vladimir Putin’s all-out attack on Ukraine.
The former Colonel assesses that the indicator, which is set against a backdrop of Chinese ‘live fire’ military drills in the Taiwan Strait, shows that an invasion is a certainty within the next two years.
‘The China exercises going around Taiwan are becoming more and more sophisticated, they are practising that power projection capability,’ he said.
‘They are learning how to use it in a more complex way.
‘Ideally, they will have the naval and military forces needed to take Taiwan militarily by early to mid-2027, there you are, I’ve given you a date.
‘However global conditions might bring that slightly earlier.’
The Kremlin’s movement of blood stocks to near Ukraine in January 2022 was taken by US officials as concrete evidence that a full-scale attack was being planned, beyond military posturing.
Ingram, speaking at The Security Event at the NEC, drew a comparison with China’s ‘invasion barges’ designed for amphibious assaults.
‘You always look for some of the most boring things and they’re the indicator to say a decision has been made,’ he said.
‘When it came to the Russians going into Ukraine just over three years ago there was the outload of blood.
‘You don’t outload blood to the frontline for exercise, you do it for combat.
‘The Chinese have built these barges with posts that can go down into beaches and a roadway that’s about a hundred metres long and they can connect them together. For anyone who knows their World War Two history, it’s a very fancy Mulberry harbour.
‘If you’re going to cross a beach, or cross rough terrain, landing on an island, or anywhere else, you need these to get your logistic support to get your armoured support in, your vehicles, your oil, your gas, your spare parts, everything in quickly. They have got no other use.’
Ingram, appearing at the event’s Security Leaders’ Summit, assessed that a Chinese attack on Taiwan is a foregone conclusion.
He said: ‘You don’t build that sort of thing unless you’ve made the decision to go. I would say we are in a game of when not if when it comes to Taiwan.’
Donald Trump is currently locked in a tariff war with Beijing, with his administration having escalated a levy on Chinese imports to 145%
Beijing has responded by increasing its tariff on US goods to the current rate of 125% while urging the US president to join in ‘mutual respect.’
Taiwan enters the wider picture as a technological powerhouse which makes the vast majority of the world’s most advanced semi-conducters.
Ingram, who owns content provider Grey Hare Media, told the conference on April 10 that trade war can give rise to physical confrontations.
‘If Xi Jinping wanted to cut Donald Trump off at the knees and has got to the end of what he can do from an economic perspective, he can cut not just the United States but the world off by physically trying to take Taiwan,’ he said.
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‘If he disrupted the manufacturing or disrupted the supply of 80% of the world’s microchips before America or Europe have the chance to fulfill that or take it over, think about the impact that would have across the board.
‘Very often economic activity can stimulate physical fighting and a move to war. So, mid-2027, it could be this year, if we don’t see a back down with all the different trade sanctions and all the rest of it.’
Washington’s existing policy on China-Taiwan relations is to ‘oppose unilateral changes to the status quo from either side’ and support Taipei with military self-defence.
The island is self-governing but China views it as an ‘alienable’ part of its territory and those who advocate its independence as ‘separatists’.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier this month that the US ‘is committed to sustaining robust, ready and credible deterrence’ to its Indo-Pacific allies, including Taiwan.
However, it is unclear where Trump stands on the issue, with the waters muddied by his remarks that the island has committed theft against the US chip industry and should pay for the ‘protection’ it receives from its ally.
China is high on the UK political agenda today after the government was forced to take control of British Steel.
The producer is owned by Chinese firm Jingye Group, which recently cancelled orders for supplies of raw materials needed to keep blast furnaces running at the Scunthorpe plant.
The government has stepped in after emergency legislation was rushed through parliament on Saturday.
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