Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping told his United States counterpart that “the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” Chinese state media paraphrased on May 14. If not “handled properly,” Xinhua reported, China and the U.S. “will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy.”

cia Director William Burns famously said in 2023 that Xi has instructed the People’s Liberation Army to be “ready by 2027 to conduct a successful invasion” of Taiwan. That deadline—which Burns specified is for pla readiness, not an actual launch—is a year away. But more recent signs suggest China is planning something.

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he left China that Xi had asked him if he would support Taiwan militarily amid a Chinese invasion. “I said, ‘I don’t talk about those things,” President Trump said. “There’s only one person that knows that. You know who it is? Me.”

Most media focused on what this hinted at America’s plan. This shifts focus away from the implied bombshell: Xi directly informed the U.S. president of his desire to invade a Western economy of 23 million people before the next U.S. presidential election.

This invasion could happen as soon as this year.

Practice Makes Perfect

China has been preparing for a large-scale invasion of Taiwan since 2022. Some analysts have called it the most rehearsed amphibious invasion in history, even surpassing World War ii’s Normandy landings.

China’s rehearsals are extremely realistic. Its large-scale exercises last August featured D-Day-style landing craft and a floating causeway. Soldiers navigated past obstacles simulating fish farms and other infrastructure common off Taiwan’s coast. The landings were spaced out to correlate with the distance between Taipei and Kaohsiung, a major city in Taiwan’s south.

A Reuters investigation showed China is involving civilian ships, such as ferries and cargo ships, in its preparations. Commandeering civilian vehicles like this, according to former Taiwanese National Security Council member Yuster Yu, “shows they are serious about putting troops on the ground.”

China has even constructed a mock city based on central Taipei, including mock-ups of Taiwan’s presidency and other government buildings. The mock city is located next to a military base in Inner Mongolia and is apparently also used for training purposes.

Such exercises are exactly what one would expect China to do if it were going to launch an invasion.

The Purges

2022 saw the start of another major trend in Chinese politics: intense military purges. Since 2022, over 100 senior pla members have either been arrested, fired or gone missing. This January, Zhang Youxia, who was Xi’s deputy as head of the pla, and Liu Zhenli, China’s equivalent of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were purged. On May 7, a military court issued suspended death sentences for corruption against Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, two former defense ministers under Xi.

Corruption is endemic in Chinese political circles, and Xi has made it a priority to stamp it out. But analysts suspect there is more to the purges than a general cleanup.

Some suspect that Xi saw the endemic corruption as a force weakening the pla ahead of operations against Taiwan. Joel Wuthnow wrote for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (csis), “[T]he results of a campaign that he believes has finally gotten corruption under control and put true professionals in place” gives Xi the encouragement he needs. Other outlets, like the Epoch Times and Taipei Times, speculate that these generals were opposed to an invasion of Taiwan so Xi removed them. “Most worrisome,” Wuthnow continued, “new generals might be in a weaker position than those who came before them to push back if Xi entertains the same war optimism that convinced [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to attack Georgia and Ukraine.”

In any event, Xi appears hypersensitive to the current state of the military.

Why Now?

Burns’s timetable pointed to 2027. That’s not long away. But some think a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could come even sooner. “In the long term, [problems in invading Taiwan] are problems for China that will only get worse,” WarFronts commented on May 13, “to the point that by 2030 or 2028 or even as soon as 2027, they could make a Chinese invasion of Taiwan much more difficult. But all of these problems are the least problematic that they’re going to be right now.”

One of these problems is Japan. Largely caused by Chinese aggression, Japan is in the midst of a military spending spree unprecedented since the end of World War ii. Next to the U.S., Japan is also one of Taiwan’s most important backers and has previously threatened, in the event of Chinese action, to help Taiwan militarily. But while Japan is increasing its military spending, it takes time to produce actual weapons. So if China waits too long, Japan could become a military powerhouse that could pose a credible threat.

Another issue is the United States. In the aftermath of the Iran war, the U.S. is uniquely vulnerable. According to estimates from csis, in the war against Iran, the U.S. has used over 1,000 of its 3,100 Tomahawk missiles, half of its 2,330 Patriot missiles and as many as 290 of its 360 thaad interceptors. These are among America’s core defense munitions. They are also the munitions that smaller allies like Taiwan would depend on when attacked. These stocks take years to rebuild.

America simply cannot afford to significantly arm Taiwan right now. As Niall Ferguson wrote for the Free Press: “It seems like a dumb move by China to give [the U.S. military] nearly two years to replenish these depleted stocks and to upgrade its arsenal for the age of drone warfare.”

Xi may also hope to take advantage of Trump’s transactionalism. If loosening support for Taiwan is the price for a better trade relationship with China, Trump may be willing to pay the price. He has already attempted this kind of foreign policy with Putin. Trump won’t be president forever. The likely candidates to replace him would probably be far less business-oriented in their foreign policy.

Would Xi Really Do It?

Despite all of this, many feel the idea of such advanced economies like China and Taiwan going to war is implausible. The shocks to the global economy of such a crisis would be too hard-hitting for a country like China to bear. The casualty rates could be enormous. It would turn the global community against China.

Similar arguments were given in early 2022 for why many predicted Russia would never invade Ukraine:

• “No, Russia Will Not Invade Ukraine” (Al Jazeera; Feb. 9, 2022)
• “Why Putin Won’t Invade Ukraine” (Atlantic Council; Feb. 16, 2022)
• “Why Russia Won’t Invade Ukrainistan” (Asia Times; Feb. 21, 2022)

The war on Ukraine has shown how a small country can keep armies of a much larger world power at bay. Compared to Ukraine in 2022, Taiwan has much more money and has been preparing for war far longer.

Yet Taiwan has disadvantages that Ukraine doesn’t. The biggest one is geography. Ukraine has a comfortable western border with countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It has supply lines with its main military backers that Russia cannot touch. Taiwan, in contrast, is an island. It wouldn’t take much for China, which controls the world’s largest navy, to encircle and blockade Taiwan. It supply lines of weapons, food and fuel would be cut in an instant. The U.S., Japan and other partners couldn’t send weapons without risking war with China.

Then there is the population disparity. Before the 2022 invasion, Russia had an estimated population of 144 million, compared to Ukraine’s 41 million. Taiwan has about 23 million compared to China’s billion-plus.

Finally, there is Taiwan’s unique political situation. Even Russia officially recognized Ukraine’s legitimacy as a sovereign state until the war. Taiwan maintains conventional diplomatic relations with only a few countries. China’s official narrative is that Taiwan is not a sovereign state but a renegade province ruled by an illegitimate government. If war happened, China would claim it was merely settling an internal dispute. If China could declare victory quickly enough, the West may be willing to accept this narrative to avoid a larger crisis.

China’s narrative might not make for good arguments, “but they don’t need to be,” WarFronts commented. “They just need to be good enough that distracted nations all across the globe can grit their teeth, utter some quiet apologies to their Taiwanese constituents, and accept that it’s easier to accept Beijing’s narrative than to welcome a trade war or an actual war with China.”

This isn’t to imply that China would definitely invade Taiwan in 2026. Some commentators suspect Xi would like to try a bloodless takeover first. Taiwan has presidential elections in 2028, and China has heavy influence with the largest opposition party, the Kuomintang. But it all stands that a 2026 invasion is too plausible to comfortably dismiss.

Taiwan’s fall could shake the global economy more than any of the past five years’ worth of crises. It is an advanced Western economy that supplies most of the world’s microchips. The South China Sea is the world’s busiest sea lane. The effects of any war there would hit home, and they could easily spread to countries like Japan and South Korea—U.S. treaty allies hosting tens of thousands of American personnel.

Even mere rumors of a China-Taiwan war aren’t comfortable to hear, but this is the world we live in.

Wars and Rumors of Wars

Jesus Christ prophesied of events to look for leading up to His Second Coming. One of the most important is an event He called the “great tribulation”—a time of trouble “such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). Christ specified that “if those days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved …” (verse 22; Revised Standard Version). This kind of mass death wasn’t possible until mankind invented weapons of mass destruction. This is speaking of events to occur in our day.

The world hasn’t yet entered the Great Tribulation, but Christ specified this wouldn’t be the only global turmoil before His return. He said, “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows” (verses 6-8).

In other words, leading up to the Tribulation, the world will be rocked by conflicts so scary that people will think they are in the Tribulation before it has even arrived. Even the rumors of these conflicts will be enough to terrify people.

Think about all the major conflicts that have happened just this decade. The Taliban defeated America in Afghanistan. Russia invaded Ukraine. Hamas invaded Israel from Gaza. The Syrian revolutionaries finally ousted President Bashar Assad. India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed nations, had open conflict. America attacked Iran, killing its supreme leader. It’s as if every part of the globe is on fire.

China’s invasion of Taiwan could dwarf even these conflicts. This kind of bloody vortex isn’t inevitable. But the mere plausible rumor of such is enough to scare people worldwide.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has forecast that China’s takeover of Taiwan will be a global crisis. Prophecies such as Leviticus 26:19, where God promises to break the pride of His people’s power for disobedience, refer to America. (Request a free copy of Herbert W. Armstrong’s book The United States and Britain in Prophecy for more information.)

After U.S. President Bill Clinton made comments against Taiwanese independence in 1998, Mr. Flurry wrote: “How could anyone fail to see that Taiwan is destined to become a part of mainland China? These 21 million people are going to be forced into the Chinese mold; and it is going to happen for one reason: because of a pitifully weak-willed America. Does freedom really mean so little to us?”

This takeover doesn’t have to be because of a direct assault. China could absorb Taiwan “peacefully” as it did Hong Kong. But if China wanted to send soldiers in, it could. Everybody can see it has the ability to do so and, more importantly, the determination. When China does take over Taiwan, expect it to lead to more of the “beginning of sorrows.”

To learn more, request a free copy of our booklet Russia and China in Prophecy.