Xi Jinping preparing for war, but Taiwan invasion likely to fail: McMaster

While warning that the Chinese President was prepared for war, the former White House insider said any move to annex Taiwan was a high-risk gamble for Beijing.

HR McMaster served as the 25th US national security adviser from 2017-18. Picture: AFP

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Xi Jinping has prepared China for war, but any move by Beijing to annex Taiwan would invariably fail, former US national security adviser and retired lieutenant general H.R. McMaster has warned.

Appearing in conversation with former foreign minister Alexander Downer at The Australian’s Defending Australia summit on Monday, Mr McMaster, who served in the first Trump administration, said Beijing was looking for signs of weakness among its adversaries.

“We have to take this seriously, I think, and recognise that the CCP … is prepared for war,” he said. “What the message should be … from Australia and the US to our friends in Asia and beyond is – It’s not a choice between Washington and Beijing; it’s a choice between sovereignty and servitude.”

With Beijing maintaining its ambition to reunify with Taiwan – which it regards as a breakaway territory that it has not ruled out taking with force – Mr McMaster said that achieving that goal would be far from straightforward.

He said China would likely move to establish a blockade or quarantine on Taiwan to achieve “annexation by invitation”, but he expected that would likely fail if the US was drawn into conflict.

While the final decision on America’s position would rest with congress, Mr McMaster said he expected the US would ultimately lean toward defending Taiwan in the face of Chinese encroachment.

“We care for a number of reasons, obviously, because I don’t think China would stop there … it would use its ability to subsume Taiwan to recreate the tributary system of the Qing Dynasty in terms of servile relationships across the Indo-Pacific,” he said.

The former White House insider said that any attempt to invade Taiwan by China would pose a “tough military problem” due to the island’s geography and the determination of its people.

“Look at what the Ukrainians did to the Russian military, and they didn’t have to cross a major water obstacle.”