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The Director of National Intelligence’s annual report on global threats includes faulty assessments asserting that the Chinese military does not plan an assault on Taiwan by 2027, China experts say.
The DNI Annual Threat Assessment, known by its acronym ATA, was made public March 16. It states that China “probably” will move ahead this year with setting the conditions for annexing Taiwan “short of conflict.”
The section of the report called “China-Taiwan” was drafted by David Shullman, the national intelligence officer for China on the DNI National Intelligence Council, former officials said.
Mr. Shullman, a former CIA analyst, is a holdover from the Biden administration. Federal Election Commission records show that Mr. Schullman donated $500 to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in September 2024, while he was a scholar at the Atlantic Council.
Allowing Mr. Shullman to continue at the National Intelligence Council as the most senior intelligence analyst for China raises questions about the judgment of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in overseeing the intelligence community and in appointing those who minimize threats.
Joe Kent, Ms. Gabbard’s director of the National Counterterrorism Center, recently resigned to protest the Trump administration’s military operation against Iran. He said in a resignation letter that “Iran posed no imminent threat.”
The ATA similarly minimized the threat from China.
“China, despite its threat to use force to compel unification if necessary and to counter what it sees as a U.S. attempt to use Taiwan to undermine China’s rise, prefers to achieve unification without the use of force, if possible,” the report said.
The report says the People’s Liberation Army continues to develop forces for an annexation of the island with military action, if ordered.
Yet progress on PLA capabilities for an invasion was assessed as steady but uneven.
“The IC assesses that 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 states.
China, however, has stated publicly that taking over the democratic-ruled island is required as part of its plan for “national rejuvenation” by 2049, the 100th anniversary of communist China’s founding, the assessment said.
On the large-scale and continuing Chinese military exercises near Taiwan, which a U.S. military commander has called rehearsals for an invasion, the report appears to minimize the drills as “at times” increasing in size and pace. The exercises have included missile firings and nearly daily provocative military incursions.
According to the assessment, Beijing leaders regard an amphibious invasion of Taiwan as “extremely challenging” and risking a major failure.
China engagers
Retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell, a former Pacific Fleet intelligence chief, said national intelligence officers such as Mr. Shullman have long held influence on U.S. policy toward communist China. The analytical post has been staffed for years by what he said are “China engagers” within the U.S. intelligence community who have built careers and reputations on the view that engaging communist China best serves American interests.
The pro-China intelligence analysts say Beijing will abandon communism eventually and embrace the U.S.-led post-World War II order. That view was largely struck down during President Trump’s first administration.
“So it is incredibly disappointing to see the Director of National Intelligence’s recent Annual Threat Assessment, written by the NIO for China, falsely assert that the Chinese Communist Party does not have a plan to take Taiwan,” Capt. Fanell said.
“I know firsthand from nearly 30 years in the U.S. intelligence community that this assessment is blatantly wrong.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his immediate predecessor, Hu Jintao, ordered the PLA to build the forces to take Taiwan, he said.
Also, the assessment that the Chinese Communist Party lacks a timeline is equally false, Capt. Fanell said.
“Both Hu and Xi had ordered the PLA to possess this capability by 2020,” he said. “Now, six years on and given all the capabilities the PLA has obtained and exercised, the PRC is increasingly likely to use the military lever of power to take Taiwan, despite efforts to achieve its stated goals by non-kinetic methods.”
William C. Triplett II, a former national security professional who has worked on China intelligence issues since 1966, also criticized the DNI assessment of a China-Taiwan conflict.
“This report is a classic case of ‘Who are you going to believe: me, or your own eyes?’ since it is contrary to everything we know,” Mr. Triplett said.
“According to AI, Mr. Shullman was Biden’s China campaign adviser, meaning he opposed President Trump’s China policies from his first term. What is he doing advising President Trump today?” Mr. Triplett said.
A potential timeline for a Chinese attack was first raised in congressional testimony in 2021 by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. Philip S. Davidson, who disclosed that the PLA had been ordered to prepare for taking Taiwan from 2021 to 2027.
Two years later, CIA Director William Burns said in public remarks that a PLA military assault against the island was a matter of when and not if.
Mr. Shullman could not be reached for comment. A DNI spokeswoman declined to comment on the criticism of Mr. Shullman.
Shullman supporters
A senior intelligence official defending Mr. Shullman noted that Ms. Gabbard testified at a House hearing that the assessment did not reflect her personal views but was the intelligence community’s judgment.
“The assessments included in the ATA do not represent the personal views of the DNI or an analyst, despite what your sources may claim,” the official said.
The official also dismissed comments by Mr. Burns, the CIA director in 2023, as “old.”
“This assessment is reflective of other intelligence assessments from across the community,” the official said.
Supporters of Mr. Shullman, including those who have worked with him, said in an online China affairs forum that he is not an analyst known for “deflating” threats and has been less prone than others to vague analytical judgments.
Some within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have opposed Mr. Shullman for his hawkish and forward-leaning analyses.
One online defender said Mr. Shullman was not at fault because the process of producing the worldwide threat assessment is driven largely by top officials, and that has included hiring analysts who hold more benign views on intelligence matters.
Randy Schriver, a former China expert at the State Department and the Pentagon, said he considers the threat assessment of a Taiwan scenario questionable.
“While this may reflect recent reporting in various collection channels, it is clearly a dynamic environment and subject to the whims of a single, very isolated leader of China,” said Mr. Schriver, now chairman of the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security.
“For example, Xi Jinping could still wake up tomorrow, assess the U.S. is preoccupied and our munitions are depleted from the Iran conflict, and decide it is go time. Who in the Chinese system is going to tell him that’s a bad idea?”
John Tkacik, a former State Department intelligence analyst and Taiwan specialist, said the ODNI, which produced the report, must have a full readout of the heavy tempo of daily PLA air force and navy sorties in the Taiwan Strait and around Taiwan over the past few years obtained from shared Taiwan intelligence and U.S. signals intelligence.
“That alone should have tempered ODNI’s complacency,” Mr. Tkacik said. “But this threat assessment doesn’t mention them at all. It’s a sort of ‘dog that didn’t bark.’”
Mr. Tkacik said the current Iran conflict may have prompted DNI analysts to avoid “ringing another alarm bell on China.”
Another factor in the questionable assessment of Taiwan is that intelligence analysts may be tailoring their assessment in anticipation of Mr. Trump’s upcoming visit to China and seeking to avoid “cage rattling” Beijing.
“I suspect the ODNI assessment is right in its broad conclusion, but its reasoning seems simplistic,” Mr. Tkacik said. “The real deterrence to Chinese hostilities is in the administration’s very solid substantive support of Taiwan and the president’s ‘ironclad’ relationship with Japan’s [Prime Minister Sanae] Takaichi.”
Mr. Tkacik said ODNI analysts should know that Mr. Xi’s calculus is far more complex than the problems posed by conducting an amphibious attack, the likely disruption of global semiconductor supply chains, or the long-term sustainability of conflict with the U.S. and its allies.
“It must also include how to manipulate and subvert Taiwan’s domestic political sentiment both pre- and post-hostilities,” he said.
More difficult challenges of social, ethnic and cultural backlash throughout the Asia-Pacific region should have been addressed in light of what the projection of Chinese military force would cause, he said.
The Pearl Harbor lesson
Retired Navy Capt. Carl O. Schuster, who has extensive experience in Asia-Pacific military intelligence positions, said ODNI analysts correctly assessed the economic impact of a China-Taiwan conflict on the U.S. and the world.
“My reservations relate to the assessment’s belief that China has no set date for the mission,” Capt. Schuster said.
“On the surface, that is true. But the report implies there is no immediate need for concern, ignoring the potential for PRC calculating that ‘the moment is now’ at some point in the next few years, say 2027 to 2030.”
Also, the assessment ignores Beijing’s oft-stated intent and mistakenly asserts that a U.S. intelligence assessment of the PLA’s chances of success by 2027 matches those of the Chinese political leadership, he said.
“Key American leaders made the same mistaken calculation about Japan’s capability and future intentions before December 1941,” said Capt. Schuster, referring to the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. “We cannot afford to repeat that mistake.”
Japanese hostility toward the West was obvious in the 1930s, but most Western analysts at the time, until 1941, believed Japan was risk-averse and would not strike outside the Western Pacific, he said.
“I also believe the report is written in a style that suggests we can relax and take our time in preparing to counter China’s plans,” he said.
“The analysts have failed to incorporate Beijing’s interpretation of their opponents’ political will and preparation in determining its courses of action.”
China expert Rick Fisher said the assessment is, at best, shallow and debatable and, at worst, an effort to undermine the Trump presidency.
“The issue of date and timeline is a diversion from the real issue: the Chinese Communist Party’s maniacal 35-year preparation and buildup for invasion that — with a future North Korean nuclear incident, also enabled by China — could very well succeed,” said Mr. Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
Mr. Xi and the CCP have lost proxies that could carry out their strategy for world hegemony in places such as Syria, Venezuela and Cuba, where their influence was diminished, and with Russia isolated.
Israel’s help in destroying pre-nuclear Iran and its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah was also a setback for Beijing.
“All of this increases the pressure on Xi to lash out against Taiwan or the Philippines to attack U.S. power and position in Asia, threats that should have been mentioned in the ATA,” Mr. Fisher said.
If China succeeds in destroying Taiwan, then the CCP will launch wars to take Palawan from the Philippines and the Ryukyu Islands from Japan, setting into motion a 20- to 30-year string of wars for global hegemony that could be contained much longer by ensuring the survival of Taiwan, he said.
“This is the level of threat for which the ATA should be warning Americans and the world,” Mr. Fisher said.
In Beijing, Zhu Fenglian, spokeswoman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, was asked about the ATA assessment’s conclusion that China has no plan to use force against Taiwan in 2027 and that Beijing is more inclined to pursue unification through nonmilitary means.
China seeks peaceful unification, she told reporters, but “we will never promise to renounce the use of force and will retain the option to take all necessary actions.”
State media reports of Ms. Zhu’s comments Wednesday did not mention the 2027 date to be ready for military action.
Miles Yu, a former State Department policymaker on China, said the assessment appears to downplay the threat, but assessing timelines for a CCP war of aggression is futile and dangerous.
“There is no strategic advantage in guessing whether Beijing will strike in 2027, 2035, 2049 or some other year plucked from ceremonial posturing or bureaucratic projections,” Mr. Yu said in a recent published report.
“Such dates are mirages that distract from the real levers of deterrence.”
Beijing’s decision to wage war — against Taiwan, the Philippines or others in the region — is not simply a matter of internal calendar-keeping or nationalist theater.
Such a decision will be based on four decisive elements: intent, capabilities, cost and opportunities, he said.
“While China may own the first two, it does not own the latter. That distinction holds the key to strategic clarity.”
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