China studying Ukraine war as it eyes Taiwan: CIA chief
CIA director Bill Burns says Chinese leadership “look very carefully at all this, at the costs and consequences of any effort to use force to gain control over Taiwan.”
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Bill Burns testifies during a House Intelligence Committee hearing about worldwide threats in April 2021 (AFP)
CIA director Bill Burns said, on Saturday, that China is closely monitoring the war in Ukraine and is likely adjusting its long-term plans for gaining control of Taiwan in light of the war's lessons.
"The Chinese leadership is trying to look carefully at what lessons they should draw from Ukraine about their ambitions and Taiwan," Burns told a Financial Times conference.
Burns believes Beijing has been "surprised" by Russia's military forces' poor performance as well as the strong opposition from Ukrainian society as a whole.
"I think they've been struck by how particularly the transatlantic alliance has come together to impose economic costs on Russia as a result of that aggression," he claimed.
Beijing has been "unsettled by the fact that what Putin has done is to drive Europeans and Americans closer together," Burns said.
"What conclusions get drawn from all that remains a question mark," he said.
"I think the Chinese leadership is looking very carefully at all this, at the costs and consequences of any effort to use force to gain control over Taiwan," he added.
China considers Taiwan as part of its national territory and has increased military and diplomatic pressure in the past years to assert its sovereignty claim, fueling anger in Taipei and concern in Washington.
Despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties, Taiwan has emerged as a key factor in strained relations between China and the United States, the island's most important international backer and arms supplier.
China frequently cites this point as the most sensitive issue in its relations with the US, knowing that the latter is bound by treaties to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself and it has long maintained a policy of "strategic ambiguity" on whether it would intervene militarily to protect Taiwan in the event of a "Chinese attack".
