China Increases Military Exercises, Pentagon Confident Beijing Will Not Try To Annex Taiwan In Next Two Years

US Marines air patrol over the Pentagon. (Wikimedia Commons/US Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. Brian R. Domzalski)

JAKARTA - A senior United States Department of Defense (Pentagon) official said on Monday Washington had not changed its assessment of the timeline on the potential for China to take over Taiwan militarily, sticking to its earlier statement that Beijing would not try to take it over the next two years.

China announced new military exercises around Taiwan on Monday, drawing attention from President S. Joe Biden, a day after the scheduled end of Beijing's largest military exercise in the area to protest US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to the island last week.

Asked whether the Pentagon's assessment that China would not try to reclaim Taiwan militarily in the next two years had changed since Pelosi's trip, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said: "No."

"Obviously the PRC (People's Republic of China) is trying to coerce Taiwan, it's clear they are trying to coerce the international community and what I would say is we're not going to take the bait and it's not going to work," Kahl said.

In November, the top US general said China was unlikely to try to seize Taiwan militarily in the next few years, even as its military developed capabilities that would allow it to forcibly retake the self-ruled island.

Officials have privately said that they don't believe China will even be ready militarily to take Taiwan completely by 2027.

"Obviously what they're trying to do is salami slice their way into the new status quo," Kahl said.

Kahl said the United States military would travel through the Taiwan Strait in the coming weeks.

Pelosi's visit angered China, which responded by launching a ballistic missile test in Taipei for the first time, as well as by abandoning several lines of dialogue with Washington, including on military issues and climate change.

Taiwan's Foreign Ministry says China, which claims the self-governing island as its own, is deliberately creating a crisis. It demands that Beijing "step back from the edge.