China is not currently planning to invade Taiwan next year, according to US spy agencies.
Instead of military intervention, Beijing is looking to gain control of the key island in the Pacific without force, an intelligence assessment states.
The annual report said that although Chinese Communist Party leaders did not plan to retake Taiwan by force, the People’s Liberation Army was developing its military capabilities that could be used in any bid to seize the island.
It read: “Chinese leaders do not currently plan to execute an invasion of Taiwan in 2027, nor do they have a fixed timeline for achieving unification.”
The assessment comes as Beijing ramps up pressure on Taiwan through frequent military drills in one of the world’s biggest potential flashpoints.
The Pentagon said last year that the US military believed China was preparing to be able to take Taiwan through “brute force” by 2027 – the centenary of the founding of its People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
But the latest report, released on Wednesday, said Beijing would prefer to ‘peacefully’ pursue its goal of ‘reunification’ with the democratically governed island.
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“China, despite its threat to use force to compel unification if necessary and to counter what it sees as a US attempt to use Taiwan to undermine China’s rise, prefers to achieve unification without the use of force, if possible,” the report said.
It added that the PLA was making “steady but uneven” progress on the capabilities it could use to capture Taiwan.
China’s foreign ministry responded to the report by saying that the US should correct its understanding of China and that resolving the Taiwan question was a matter for China only.
But Japan rejected claims in the report there had been a “significant shift” in Tokyo’s stance on Taiwan, after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said a Chinese attack on the island would launch a Japanese response.
Minoru Kihara, Japanese chief cabinet secretary, said: “The government’s position of judging an existential crisis situation with all the information it gathers is consistent with the past.
“The assessment that there has been a major shift is not accurate.”
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China responded furiously to Ms Takaichi’s remarks that Japan would take military action in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, urging its people not to travel to Japan and choking off some exports.
Ms Takaichi has maintained that her position – which increases the risk of a Chinse attack on Taiwan triggering a regional conflict – was consistent with longstanding Japanese policy.
The US report said: “China is employing multi-domain coercive pressure that probably will intensify through 2026, aimed both at punishing Japan and deterring other countries from making similar statements about their potential involvement in a Taiwan crisis.”
US President Donald Trump, who delayed his planned trip to China at the end of this month over the Iran war, has repeatedly touted his “great relationship” with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and downplayed the threat of Chinese drills near Taiwan.
He said Mr Xi told him he will not attack Taiwan while the US president is in office, though Beijing has never confirmed this.
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China views Taiwan – which was established in 1949 when the nationalist government retreated after Communist forces seized power on the mainland – as its own territory, and has never renounced the use of force to take the island.
Taiwan rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only the island’s people can decide its future.
