Mcleod, 20th March: According to Al Jazeera in a tweet citing Newsweek on a Russian intelligence dossier, China has intentions to attack Taiwan as soon as next fall. The claim has been met with suspicion by traders. Many geopolitical observers believed that recent geopolitical developments surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will deter China from attacking Taiwan in the near future (i.e. the strong Western response, Russia’s difficulty attaining its military goals facing unexpectedly spirited pushback).

عاجل | نيوزويك عن وثيقة مخابراتية روسية: الصين لديها خطط لغزو تايوان في الخريف المقبل

— الجزيرة – عاجل (@AJABreaking) March 18, 2022

Earlier Taiwan’s foreign minister warned that if China views the United States’ response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “weak,” the democratic island may be invaded. On the 12th day of the Russian invasion, Taiwan foreign minister Joseph Wu said, “I believe that China’s leaders are … watching the situation and trying to draw their own conclusions, the danger is that if they believe that the West’s response to the Russian invasion is weak, and lacks impact, they could take that as a positive sign [for an invasion of Taiwan]”.

China’s Ministry of Finance presented the National People’s Congress with a draught budget of 1.45 trillion yuan, up 7.1 percent year on year and the largest rise in military spending since 2019. Lin Ying-yu, a Taiwan military expert, believes the genuine figure is likely far higher.

Military funding has more than doubled since CCP general secretary Xi Jinping took power in 2012, according to Su Tze-Yun of Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research. Su estimates that by 2030, China could have 1,000 nuclear warheads.

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