A leading expert has warned China is ‘convinced it needs to hit the US with a Pearl Harbor-style surprise attack’ to win war over Taiwan.’
“Oriana Skylar Mastro, a fellow at Stanford University and a former China analyst at the Pentagon, told The Sun Online how Beijing increasingly views an invasion of the island as inseparable from a war with the US,” The U.S. Sun reported.
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The warning comes while China conducts military exercises off Taiwan, including live-fire missile exercises.
China's response follows House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
China Vows To “Fight To The Death” — Amasses Tanks On Border
Pelosi is the most senior US figure to visit the self-governing island in decades.
The U.S. Sun added:
Mastro told The Sun Online these types of blockade war games are set to become more commonplace as the threat of war increasingly looms.
She explained that Beijing now believes it also has to fight the US if it is to fulfil its long cherished goal of invading Taiwan and "reuniting" with the mainland.
Mastro believes the most likely way such a conflict would play out is with a Pearl Harbor-style attack on US forces in the region.
It would be designed to try and knock out US forces so they could not react to stop China gaining a foothold in Taiwan, which it regards as its territory.
The strategic gamble would be an attempt to stall a wider war - just as Japan hoped when they attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, drawing the US into World War Two.
It would be one of the chilling factors China would have to weigh up if decides the only way to "reunification" with Taiwan is an invasion.
“It’s about hitting hard and early so we can’t get boots on the island before the United States can launch a response," Mastro told The Sun Online.
She went on: "My argument is that the more people like Pelosi try to make the US commitment clear, then the more certain the Chinese are of our commitment - and the more likely a Pearl Harbor-style attack is."
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