Communist China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) celebrates its centenary in 2027, the same year the CCP has indicated it will be ready to take Taiwan by force — and new satellite photos show that it could be prepared to cross the straits in force before then.
Before you accuse me of being a crazy person for somehow just knowing that Beijing — Xi Jinping, to be more exact — wants war in 2027, it isn't me. Two months ago, milblogger and retired Navy officer CDR Salamander wrote about this strange, perhaps unprecedented phenomenon where both sides know more or less when the invasion is coming. Yet relations continue in a "business as usual" fashion.
Former U.S. Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. Phil Davidson testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2021, "I worry that [China is] accelerating their ambitions to supplant the United States and our leadership role in the rules-based international order, which they’ve long said that they want to do that by 2050. I’m worried about them moving that target closer."
Taiwan is clearly one of their ambitions before then. And I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact in the next six years.”
That's 2027. It's become known as the Davidson Window.
As CDR Sal noted in his November article, the PLA went public in 2023 with its fixation on 2027, striving for "greater strength and self-reliance in science and technology, make breakthroughs in core technologies, and accelerate the development of strategic technologies, frontier technologies, and disruptive technologies, so that technological innovation provides crucial support for the development of our military."
From the size and capabilities of its navy to the rapid modernization and size of its air force, the PLA is doing all of that.
"Yes, the demographics of 2027. Yes, the passing intersection of military and economic power ~2027," Sal warned. "Yes, yes to all the other lights that are blinking yellow to red later this decade from the South China Sea to the Arctic."
Everybody seems to know that war is coming, particularly China's shipbuilders. "Anyone wondering what an invasion of Taiwan might look like now has a fresh visual clue," Naval News reported on Friday.
"A number of special and unusual barges, at least 3 but likely 5 or more, have been observed in Guangzhou Shipyard in southern China," the report continues. "These have unusually long road bridges extending from their bows. This configuration makes them particularly relevant to any future landing of PRC (People’s Republic of China) forces on Taiwanese islands."
"Amateurs study strategy," the old saw goes, "but professionals study logistics."
Beijing has gone a long way toward correcting the logistical defects that have long made the Taiwan Strait an insurmountable barrier for PLA forces. The construction of these mobile harbors — much like the "Mulberries" this country built to make D-Day possible — indicates that they're serious in ways we are not.
Last week I wrote that President-reelect Donald Trump's crazy-man act on foreign policy was meant to bring Vladimir Putin to the peace table and to deter Xi Jinping. But the most sobering thought I had while writing this column is that Xi may no longer be deterrable.
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