26 November 2024

Would the US win a war with China over Taiwan? US lawmakers briefed on the potential outcome

Morgan Phillips

House lawmakers were briefed Wednesday about the potential outcome if the U.S. were to find itself at war with China over Taiwan within the next two years, as the global superpower increasingly encroaches on U.S. allies.

The Chinese defense industrial base is operating at a "wartime footing," and now has a shipbuilding capacity 230 times greater than the U.S.’s, making a potential invasion of Taiwan a not-unlikely outcome.

U.S. military analysts have projected 2027 as the year by which China would be fully equipped for a military invasion of Taiwan. And the U.S. has long followed a policy of refusing to say whether it would come to the island’s defense under such a scenario.

But under war exercises gamed out by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) 25 times and presented to members of the House China Select Committee, the alliance of the U.S., Taiwan and Japan defeated an amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan, but not without suffering heavy losses.

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