US military vows ‘more lethal’ force in 2023 to deter Beijing attack on Taiwan

Pentagon envisions countering China’s ‘dangerous’ provocations that senior official likens to ‘driving with road rage in a school zone’

Beijing is believed to have no set plan for attacking Taiwan, with its timeline heavily dependent on US vigilance

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Visitors look at Chinese military vehicles carrying Dongfeng-41 and Dongfeng-17 ballistic missiles at the Beijing Exhibition Centre in October. Photo: AP

Published: 4:00am, 9 Dec 2022Updated: 6:40am, 9 Dec 2022

Next year will be the most important in recent memory in transforming the US military to counter China’s increasingly assertive and coercive military behaviour in the Indo-Pacific region, deter in no uncertain terms a Taiwan attack and grapple with Beijing’s nuclear build-up, senior US military officials said on Thursday.

While the US firmly opposes Russia’s war in Ukraine, China remains America’s greatest military “pacing challenge”, particularly around Taiwan, and that will be the case for decades to come, added authors of the China Military Power Report released last week.

“2023 is likely to stand as the most transformative year in US force posture in the region in a generation,” said Ely Ratner, Assistant Secretary of Defence for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs.

The US presence in the Indo-Pacific will be “more lethal, more mobile, more resilient and exactly reinforcing that kind of deterrence that we were talking about that make some of these rapid, low-cost invasions nearly impossible”, Ratner added.

President Xi Jinping has set forth three key benchmarks for the People’s Liberation Army. By 2027, the centenary of the PLA’s founding, it should be well advanced in its modernisation. By 2035, it should complete that program. And by 2049, it plans to be a world-class military force.

This has led military analysts and US defence officials to speculate that Xi could be preparing to invade Taiwan as early as 2027. But officials on Thursday said they believed nothing was set in stone and the timing on any attack on Taiwan would heavily depend on the vigilance of US forces.

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