A senior U.S. defense official and the U.S. Army’s commanding officer in the Pacific have downplayed the possibility of China imminently attempting to invade Taiwan, citing the risks and complexity of such an operation.

U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth and Charles Flynn, commander of the U.S. Army Pacific, gave their assessment Monday in a discussion on the Army’s role in the Indo-Pacific hosted by the American Enterprise Institute.

During the discussion, Flynn said China’s military had made “extraordinary” progress in recent years.

It has also developed a strategy to control access to its operating environment — known as an anti-access/area denial, or A2/AD strategy — focused on defeating air and maritime capabilities and on cyber operations, he said.

Despite these advances, Flynn argued that an invasion of Taiwan would be a complicated operation in which China could not solely rely on its H-6 bombers, ships and submarines.

Instead, it would have to generate an invasion force that could cross the Taiwan Strait and then seize, hold, and consolidate gains in Taiwan, he said.

“The complexity of a joint island landing campaign is not a small one,” he said. “You have to be an incredibly professional force. And they’re working on it, but…they’re not ten feet tall.”

“They have work to do. And I think now is the time for us to get into position to be able to deter that event from happening,” he said.

Wormuth, meanwhile, agreed that while China had greatly modernized its armed forces over the past 20 years, an invasion of Taiwan “is not a military operation for the faint of heart.”

“So I would imagine President Xi may have questions about how successfully the PLA could do that,” she said.

Wormuth said that in her view, an amphibious invasion of Taiwan is not “imminent,” though the U.S. could help deter such an event by showing that it has the capabilities to win in a conflict.

Citing recent wargames carried out by civilian organizations, Wormuth said a cross-Taiwan Strait conflict would not be quickly decided, raising concerns over the depth of U.S. munitions stockpiles.

In addition to ramping up its own industrial arms base, Washington should also be focused on developing Taiwan’s asymmetric capabilities and helping it “become a porcupine,” she said.

During the conversation, Wormuth also predicted that China would attack “the U.S. homeland” if a major war erupted over Taiwan or elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel