China at a ‘rapid boil’ for military action, admiral warns

Chinese forces are escalating preparations for a military attack against Taiwan in what the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command calls a “rapid boil.”

Adm. Samuel J. Paparo said in public remarks that his predecessor warned him before he took over one of the largest military forces a year ago that a conflict with China could take place on his watch.

“You know the metaphor of boiling the frog. Well, it’s a rapid boil. We notice quick change,” Adm. Paparo said of People’s Liberation Army operations in remarks at a conference hosted by the McCain Institute on Friday.

The PLA in 2021 held a single brigade exercise near Taiwan and followed it with a six-brigade drill in 2022 and a 42-brigade exercise in 2024.

The 2024 war games involved two-thirds of the PLA navy’s amphibious fleet with hundreds of assault combat vehicles in the water that practiced breaching barriers and obstacles and then moving military forces on land in simulated attacks on urban terrain, he said.

U.S. military leaders said the operations represent a steady flow of expanded training and rehearsals for an attack on Taiwan.

The Chinese military is also conducting frequent “pressure operations” around Taiwan that simulate the closing of a military zone.

“These are rehearsals for selective blockade quarantine, and then we’re seeing rehearsals across the board, and so that number from one to six to 42 are step-level changes in the environment,” the four-star admiral said.

“I think the rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one nonlinear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night, that keeps me up at night.”

Growing ties and partnerships between China and two other U.S. adversaries, Russia and North Korea, are also worrisome. “All of it is palpable over the last year,” Adm. Paparo said.

Adm. Paparo first described the Chinese military rehearsals last year. He said they range from small island seizures, such as Taiwan’s small island near the Chinese coast, to blockade rehearsals to prevent the island from receiving needed resources.

China’s objective in a military blockade would be to interdict certain commodities and try to force concessions from Taipei.

Last are rehearsals for large-scale invasion operations across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait, described as “very compelling models” for attacks.

Adm. Paparo described the rehearsals as the “entire range of military operations, providing every option that they would want. And these are rehearsals in earnest.”

Asked about Chinese President Xi Jinping’s order for the PLA to be ready for military action against Taiwan by 2027, Adm. Paparo said the year is not a “go by” date. Instead, it is an order to be ready for action in 2027.

Beijing has set the stage for a military takeover with a 2005 “anti-secession law” to try an annexation if Taiwan declares formal independence or is seen moving further away from mainland control.

As for PLA readiness for an attack, Adm. Paparo said: “There are certain conditions where they might affect an invasion or some kind of coercive behavior before they believe they’re fully ready.”

Other signs of increasing Chinese belligerence in the region include naval patrols and live-fire exercises around Australia and New Zealand.

The PLA warships circumnavigating Australia were akin to the military “stretching their legs,” he said.

“They’re becoming a global force bit by bit,” he said.

China also faces mounting internal problems, including regular purges of officials for corruption, severe economic problems with financial and real estate crises, and youth alienation with people “lying flat” in defiance of the system, he said.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party is also struggling with a demographic decline.

Asked about the balance of power between the United States and China, Adm. Paparo said he is convinced that the United States would prevail in a war, based on American military advantages in submarine warfare and counterspace and the ability to strike Chinese forces “from the surface to the Karman line,” a zone 62 miles above Earth.

However, the trend for matching forces against the PLA is “a bad trajectory.”

He said China is producing two submarines a year versus 1.4 for the United States and six warships for every 1.8 U.S. naval combatant. China also produces 120 fighters yearly, compared with about 90 for the United States.

Asked whether the American people are ready to go to war, Adm. Paparo said it doesn’t matter to him because his position is that he owes military options to the president.

“And it will be up to the commander in chief if America does go to war,” he said.

Over history, he said, many in the world have mistakenly assumed that the United States is not ready to go to war. He noted that the Pearl Harbor attack and World War II were followed by the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War.

“So there is an element within the United States that when it feels sufficiently threatened, our country becomes unified and serious,” he said.

Adm. Paparo said he sees troubling signs from the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un, such as blown-up roads that connected to South Korea and the building of a wall inside the military demarcation line between the two countries.

“I think there is a significant fear that if the North Koreans catch wind of how their fellow Koreans are living in the South, it could be troublesome,” he said.

North Korea’s ties to Russia will result in greater military capability for Pyongyang.

“This is a dangerous and unpredictable potential adversary,” he said.