Russia’s ongoing struggle to defeat Ukraine has altered the scale and timeline surrounding China’s Taiwan invasion strategy, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said Wednesday.
Beijing is “unsettled” by Russia’s “strategic failure” in Ukraine and now believes it requires “overwhelming force” to conquer Taiwan, CIA Director William Burns said during an interview at the Aspen Security Forum. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, more than 10,000 have died as of June 24, many of whom have been civilians, BBC News reported.
After the Kremlin launched a multi-pronged attack on Ukraine, poor planning, overconfidence and fierce resistance contributed to heavy Russian casualties and a failure to capture any major cities in the early days of the war, Defense One reported. Meanwhile, international sanctions have been levied against Russia’s economy and the Ukrainian war effort has been bolstered by an influx of money and military hardware from the U.S. and other allied countries, such as the United Kingdom.
“Our sense is that [the Ukraine war] 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.
Read more at The Daily Caller