Over the past few months, as competition with China has intensified, the Biden administration has struggled to provide the United States and its allies with a clear picture of Beijing’s intentions. In mid-February, for example, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that China could soon begin providing Russia with lethal aid for its war in Ukraine—a step that would dramatically change the dynamic of the conflict. But so far, the administration has not been able to confirm plans for such aid or to find concrete evidence that such transfers are taking place. Similarly, in late February, CIA Director William Burns stated that Beijing will be prepared to conquer Taiwan by 2027. Yet there is widespread disagreement among analysts in Washington about Beijing’s military plans and if and when such an invasion might occur.
There is a reason for this enormous uncertainty. The CIA and the other agencies in the U.S. intelligence community have worked hard to understand China’s plans, intentions, and capabilities. But although Washington may have a rough sense of when China’s military will be ready to invade Taiwan, American spies have difficulty understanding Chinese objectives and leveraging that understanding to anticipate Chinese actions. Unlike Russia, which has been thoroughly penetrated by the U.S. intelligence community, reporting by the New York Times and Foreign Policy indicates that China dismantled the U.S. spy system at its borders, famously arresting and executing the CIA’s network of Chinese informants in the early 2010s. Moreover, power within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is becoming ever-more concentrated at the top, making it harder for secrets to leak out. And Beijing’s international footprint is so sprawling that it is nearly impossible to keep tabs on all of China’s external activities and plans.
