Chinese president Xi Jinping and a PLA Navy honor guard await the King of Bahrain (Photo by Feng Li/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee said today he doesn’t buy that China will make a move on Taiwan in 2027, for several reasons, including his contention that it seems it would be “really dumb.”
“I’m skeptical, frankly, of that statement, which is everywhere, you know, ‘Xi [Jinping] has ordered the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] to be ready to invade Taiwan in 2027,’” Rep. Jim Himes told the audience a Brookings Institute and CSIS event. “First of all, it may not happen.”
“It also feels like a really dumb way to go, right? You know?” he said later. “There are islands that are claimed by Taiwan that are two miles off the coast of China, right? You could implement a blockade. You know, what? If you invade Taiwan, what happens? A. You may lose. B. You may reduce the place to smoking rubble, in which case, what have you really achieved economically? You know, you’d have incredible brain drain. You’ve risked a nuclear war with the United States, I presume. You destabilize the region for a generation.”
The year 2027 has been referred to as the Davidson Window, named so after then-head of US Indo-Pacific Command Adm. Phil Davidson testified before lawmakers in 2021 that Beijing might try to annex Taiwan within six years. In 2023, CIA Director Bill Burns reiterated that timeline, saying US intelligence showed Xi had given the Chinese army a 2027 deadline to be ready to invade should he give the order.
“Now, that does not mean that he’s decided to conduct an invasion in 2027 or any other year, but it’s a reminder of the seriousness of his focus and his ambition,” Burns said then.
Last month, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, said China did appear to be on track to meet Xi’s 2027 preparedness goal, but it wasn’t clear if Beijing had thought through a long-term invasion plan.
Himes, who is briefed on classified American intelligence assessments, said today that while he wouldn’t flatly “reject” the contention that China could invade in the next three years, it would be impossible to know if China had achieved the “objective” to be ready. And it probably wouldn’t work out well if they tested it.
“You know, just ask Vladimir Putin how predictable invasions are, even of neighboring countries, much less across 100 miles of blue water,” he said.
Himes said the 2027 warnings are the “kind of thing that hawks in the House say and I’m supposed to be really scared by that, rather than by saying, ‘Okay, well how do we take the steps to make that eventuality less likely?’
“And those steps can range from ‘Let’s keep or really accelerate deterrence by arming Taiwan’ to ‘Let’s stress those areas where there are deep common interests with the Chinese to make that less likely,’” he said.
Justin Katz contributed to this report.
