China's Ramped-Up Exercises May Be 'Fig Leaf' for Invasion

China flooding the zone with military exercises around Taiwan might ultimately hide what will be a full-scale operation to keep the island nation under its control, an Indo-Pacific commander is warning.

"We're very close to that [point] where on a daily basis the fig leaf of an exercise could very well hide operational warning," U.S. Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo told the Honolulu Defense Forum, according to the Financial Times.

"Their aggressive maneuvers around Taiwan right now are not exercises as they call them, they are rehearsals. They are rehearsals for the forced unification of Taiwan to the mainland."

President Donald Trump's State Department has removed a statement on its website that said it does not support Taiwan independence, among changes that the island's government praised on Sunday as supporting Taiwan.

The fact sheet on Taiwan retains Washington's opposition to unilateral change from either Taiwan or from China, which claims the democratically governed island as its own.

The United States, like most countries, has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan but is its strongest international backer, bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.

"We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side," the State Department website reads in the update posted on Thursday. "We expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means, free from coercion, in a manner acceptable to the people on both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait."

China's long-held "One China" policy with Taiwan comes as it is building an "emerging axis of autocracy" and "triangle of troublemakers" with Russia and North Korea, according to Paparo.

"China, Russia and North Korea have formed a triangle of troublemakers," Paparo said, according to FT.

The U.S. has seen "coordination in everything from bomber patrols that penetrate American ADIZ [air defense identification zones] to shared anti-satellite capabilities and advanced submarine technologies from the seabed to the heavens."

The triumvirate is developing as U.S. military has been weakened and less prepared for conflict.

"Our magazines run low, our maintenance backlogs grow longer each month," Paparo said. "We operate on increasingly thin margins for error.

"Our opponents see these gaps, and they are moving aggressively to exploit them."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is remaking the Pentagon and the procurement system needs reform, Paparo warned.

"This is a hard truth," he said. "Technology alone is not going to win this fight. We've also got to reform defense bureaucracy with unprecedented urgency.

"Procurement at the speed of combat, not at the speed of committees."

Information from The Associated Press was used to compile this report.

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