U.S. Admiral: China’s Taiwan Moves Are Rehearsals, Not Exercises

By Oleg Kozlovskiy @Adobe Stock

Jennifer Hlad of DefenseOne reports that Adm. Sam Paparo warned that China’s military actions around Taiwan are rehearsals for a potential forced unification. He highlighted China’s growing capabilities and increased cooperation with Russia and North Korea. Despite U.S. readiness challenges, Paparo stressed the need for fast-tracked technology and procurement to maintain a strategic advantage. Hlad writes:

The Chinese government is “on a dangerous course” and its military’s “aggressive maneuvers around Taiwan right now are not exercises, as they call them. They are rehearsals,” U.S. Indo-Pacific Command leader Adm. Sam Paparo said today.

The Chinese actions—which just this month have included sending multiple spy balloons, naval vessels, and military planes around the island—are “rehearsals for the forced unification of Taiwan to the mainland,” Paparo said at the Honolulu Defense Forum.

What’s more, China’s “increasingly complex multi-domain operations demonstrates clear intent and improving capability,” he said

When Paparo took command of U.S. Pacific Fleet in 2021, the Chinese military did a summer exercise with one brigade. The following year, the exercise grew to six brigades. In summer 2024, it was 42 brigades—as well as 150 Chinese navy vessels, 200 amphibious assault craft practicing “breach of obstacles and outward movement to military operations in urban terrain,” he said. […]

Paparo also evinced concern about recent cooperation between China, Russia, and North Korea, which he called a “triangle of troublemakers.” […]

Paparo also painted a troubling picture of U.S. readiness with maintenance backlogs, munition stockpiles running low, and aging platforms. But he said that despite those challenges, the United States maintains “war-winning advantages” in space, counter-space, and cyber, and a “generational advantage” in submarines.

Alluding to the Navy’s “hellscape” concept of using a swarm of unmanned systems in the air, on land, and at sea to defend Taiwan, he said the idea is not to replace troops, but rather to give “warriors the advantage they deserve.” […]

“Technology alone is not going to win this fight,” Paparo said, but added that the Pentagon must act quickly to streamline its acquisition system so that “procurement [moves] at the speed of combat, not at the speed of committee.”

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