Chinese boots may be storming the shores of Taiwan in the next 18 months and they are already planning for it, US defence officials have warned.
According to US intelligence sources, the Red Army will invade the self-ruled island during a year-and-a-half window between two elections - the meeting of the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in November and the US presidential election in 2024.
Beijing will deploy its warships and begin an amphibious assault of the island if it's unable to reunify with Taiwan's leadership through political means, two former senior intelligence officials believe.
One of the officials told Fox News: "We have always had and always been aware that China has an ever-present, ever-evolving plan for an amphibious assault and military invasion of Taiwan.
"If they are not successful in reunifying politically, then they will do so with force."
He says "indefinite" intelligence points to the window being within the next 18 months.
Last year, the former commander of US forces in the Indo-Pacific Adm. Philip Davison forecast a six-year window for the invasion.
"The window is now between the Party Congress and the next U.S. presidential election," a separate source, from the Trump administration, said.
Rather than 2027, the official thinks it will take place before January 2025.
Many analysts believe the domestic situation of each rival superpower is likely to determine when the date of the invasion will fall.
China's President Xi Jinping plans to sweep an unprecedented third term at the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in November, and there will undoubtedly be political turmoil in the US as the new resident of the White House is chosen in 2024.
A White House National Security Council spokesperson told Fox the US is "prepared to manage what Beijing chooses to do".
They added: "We will not engage in saber-rattling, and we're not looking to escalate.
"At the same time, we're going to be steady and resolute. We will not be deterred from operating in the seas and skies of the Western Pacific as we have done for decades."
They said the US will continue to support Taiwan, communicate with its allies in the South China Sea, and maintain "open lines of communication in Beijing".
Just after dawn today the Red Army launched rockets into Taiwan in the greatest display of Chinese aggression in decades.
Ten of their leading Dongfeng nuclear-capable missiles plunged into the sea around the self-ruled island as warships swept over the waves and warplanes buzzed overhead.
The Dongfeng is Beijing's flagship family of short, medium, intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles - many of which can carry nuclear and conventional payloads and have been designed to pummel specific enemy targets.
Taiwan's defence officials said the PLA's fleet of aircraft dipped in and out of the territory continuing to "harass us", which has lead to Taipei bolstering its own air defences.
China burst into action after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taipei for a meeting with the country's president in which she promised America would "not abandon Taiwan".
Chinese airmen were seen by multiple civilian sources boarding attack helicopters in Fuzhou, eastern China and heading towards Taiwan.
China's movements in the Taiwan Strait, and near the country's outlying islands, are being monitored by the military with all of its troops carrying out daily training as usual, the Taiwan defence ministry statement said.
Soon after the scheduled start at 4am, China's state broadcaster CCTV said the drills had begun and would end at 4am on Sunday.
China's Eastern Theatre Command said it had completed multiple firings of conventional missiles on waters off the eastern coast of Taiwan as part of the planned exercises.
They would include live firing on the waters and in the airspace surrounding Taiwan, it said.
An unprecedented live-fire military drill was launched by China in six areas that ring Taiwan on Thursday, a day after a visit by the US House of Representatives Speaker to the self-ruled island that Beijing regards as Chinese territory.
