US Indo-Pacific commander calls PLA operations in Taiwan Strait ‘rehearsals', not just exercises
The top US commander in the Pacific said on Monday that Beijing was on a 'dangerous course' and its operations around Taiwan were not mere exercises, but 'rehearsals'.
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'We face a profoundly consequential time in the Indo-Pacific. China is on a dangerous course,' said Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, in a special address to an AI expo hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project think tank.
'Their aggressive manoeuvres around Taiwan are not just exercises. They are rehearsals,' he continued, without explicitly referencing a potential takeover of Taiwan.
Beijing regards the self-ruled island as part of China, to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take it by force and is committed to arming it.
In recent years, the US has grown increasingly anxious about a mainland takeover, with officials and lawmakers eyeing 2027 as a possible window, and pointing to more frequent
People's Liberation Army sorties that
cross the Taiwan Strait's median line as signs of growing aggression.
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Tensions between Taiwan and mainland China have also grown in the year since Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing has
called a 'destroyer of peace', took office.
Without naming specific countries, Paparo said on Monday that China's aggression was compounded by 'a growing transactional symbiosis among an axis of autocracies,' evidenced by 'technology transfers and coordinated military activities'.
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