{"id":2093,"date":"2025-04-14T13:59:40","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T13:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/?p=2093"},"modified":"2025-04-15T23:05:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T23:05:32","slug":"ominous-warning-over-when-china-could-invade-taiwan-issued-by-ex-intelligence-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/14\/ominous-warning-over-when-china-could-invade-taiwan-issued-by-ex-intelligence-boss\/","title":{"rendered":"Ominous warning over when China could invade Taiwan issued by ex-intelligence boss"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A former British Army Colonel assesses that China is ramping up its military for an invasion of Taiwan within the next two years (Picture: Iranian Army Office\/ZUMA Press W)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A former British military intelligence officer has said it is a case of \u2018when not if\u2019 China<\/a> invades Taiwan as it continues to intimidate its neighbour. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Philip Ingram MBE, speaking under the heading \u2018When Will World War 3 <\/a>Start?\u2019, gave a bleak appraisal of the tense situation in the Indo-Pacific. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Ingram, now a journalist and geopolitical analyst, likened China\u2019s building of \u2018invasion barges\u2019\u00a0to Russia<\/a>\u2019s forward deployment of blood stocks<\/a> in the logistical build-up to Vladimir Putin\u2019s<\/a> all-out attack on Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The former Colonel assesses that the indicator, which is set against a backdrop of Chinese \u2018live fire\u2019 military drills in the Taiwan Strait,<\/a> shows that an invasion is a certainty within the next two years.<\/p>\n

\u2018The China exercises going around Taiwan are becoming more and more sophisticated, they are practising that power projection capability,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018They are learning how to use it in a more complex way. <\/p>\n

\u2018Ideally, they will have the naval and military forces needed to take Taiwan militarily by early to mid-2027, there you are, I\u2019ve given you a date.<\/p>\n

\u2018However global conditions might bring that slightly earlier.\u2019 \u00a0<\/p>\n

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Chinese military drills take place in the busy Taiwan Strait (Picture: Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Kremlin\u2019s movement of blood stocks to near Ukraine in January 2022 was taken by US officials as concrete evidence that a full-scale attack<\/a> was being planned, beyond military posturing.<\/p>\n

Ingram, speaking at\u00a0The Security Event<\/a> at the NEC, drew a comparison with China\u2019s \u2018invasion barges\u2019 designed for amphibious assaults. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018You always look for some of the most boring things and they\u2019re the indicator to say a decision has been made,\u2019 he said. <\/p>\n

\u2018When it came to the Russians going into Ukraine just over three years ago there was the outload of blood. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018You don\u2019t outload blood to the frontline for exercise, you do it for combat. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018The Chinese have built these barges with posts that can go down into beaches and a roadway that\u2019s about a hundred metres long and they can connect them together. For anyone who knows their World War Two history, <\/a>it\u2019s a very fancy Mulberry harbour. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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A graphic from China\u2019s People\u2019s Liberation Army showing where its wargames were being conducted (Picture: AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018If you\u2019re 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.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ingram, appearing at the event\u2019s Security Leaders\u2019 Summit, assessed that a Chinese attack on Taiwan is a foregone conclusion. \u00a0<\/p>\n

He said: \u2018You don\u2019t build that sort of thing unless you\u2019ve made the decision to go. I would say we are in a game of when not if when it comes to Taiwan.\u2019 \u00a0<\/p>\n

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Taiwan is an island that wants to remain self-governing (Picture: Metro)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Donald Trump<\/a> is currently locked in a tariff war\u00a0with Beijing, with his administration having escalated a levy on Chinese imports<\/a> to 145% <\/p>\n

Beijing has responded by increasing its tariff on US goods<\/a> to the current rate of 125% while urging the US president to join in \u2018mutual respect.\u2019<\/p>\n

Taiwan enters the wider picture as a technological powerhouse which makes the vast majority of the world\u2019s most advanced semi-conducters.<\/p>\n

Ingram, who owns content provider Grey Hare Media, told the conference on April 10 that trade war can give rise to physical confrontations. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018If 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,\u2019 he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2093"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2099,"href":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093\/revisions\/2099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/softnary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}