WASHINGTON, D.C.: China appears determined on using force in Taiwan, with Russia's experience in Ukraine affecting Beijing's calculations on when and how — not whether — to invade, the head of the CIA said on Wednesday.
Appearing at the Aspen Security Forum, Central Intelligence Agency Director Bill Burns said that China likely saw in Ukraine that "you don't achieve quick, decisive victories with underwhelming force." He played down speculation that Chinese President Xi Jinping could move on Taiwan after a key Communist Party meeting later this year but said the risks "become higher, it seems to us, the further into this decade that you get."
"I wouldn't underestimate President Xi's determination to assert China's control" over self-ruling Taiwan, he said.
Burns said that China was "unsettled" when looking at Russia's five-month-old war in Ukraine, which he characterized as a "strategic failure" for President Vladimir Putin as he had hoped to topple the Kyiv government within a week.
"Our sense is that it probably affects less the question of whether the Chinese leadership might choose some years down the road to use force to control Taiwan, but how and when they would do it," Burns said.
"I suspect the lesson that the Chinese leadership and military are drawing is that you've got to amass overwhelming force if you're going to contemplate that in the future," he said.
