HONOLULU — Large-scale Chinese military exercises surrounding Taiwan this month were a rehearsal for future action against the self-ruled island, including preparation for a military blockade, the U.S. admiral in charge of the Indo-Pacific Command said in an interview.

The Chinese exercises, dubbed Joint Sword 2024B, were “a symbolic demonstration of combat power intended to a) coerce Taiwan and, b) to an extent execute a rapid rehearsal of their operations,” Adm. Samuel Paparo told The Washington Times in an interview this week.

“And judging by the nature of what we saw, it looked like it was more oriented towards a blockade scenario.”

In May, Adm. Paparo, a former fighter pilot, took charge of 375,000 troops and civilian personnel spread throughout the Pacific who are now focused largely on deterring China from attacking Taiwan or other nations in the region.

On the recent exercises, Chinese warships and warplanes did not conduct operations closer to Taiwan’s coasts as Chinese state media reported, he said.

Instead, as part of a legal warfare strategy that the command calls a pressure campaign against Taiwan, more Chinese coast guard activity was detected in the one-day drills held Oct. 14, including near Taiwan’s outlying islands of Kinmen and Matsu.

“They didn’t move any closer. [It was] more or less the same,” he said. “There’s a little bit of coast guard activity here, …  in kind of the contiguous or restricted zones. But actually, Joint Sword ‘24B was along the lines of [Chinese exercises in May], but shorter duration.”

More than 150 Chinese warplanes and 26 naval and coast guard ships encircled the island during the exercises that a PLA spokesman said were meant as a warning to Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing accuses of favoring an idependent Taiwan.

Four days before the drills Mr. Lai gave a widely-watched National Day speech declaring that Taiwan would resist any annexation attempt by the mainland, which considers the island part of China’s sovereign territory and has vowed one day to reclaim it.

The PLA aircraft carrier Liaoning also took part and was detected sailing on the eastern side of the island.

This month’s drills were the second part of the Chinese military’s pressure campaign. The first part was held in May when coast guard ships for the first time took part. Defense officials have said the exercises appeared to be practice for either an invasion or blockade in the coming years.

Asked about the concerns some have expressed over the People’s Liberation Army conducting a lot of military practice in preparation for a Taiwan conflict, Adm. Paparo said: “Me too.” He stressed that deterring and dissuading any future Chinese attack is a top priority for the Honolulu-based command.

The large-scale military drills are part of a PLA pressure campaign against Mr. Lai, but the admiral said Beijing was looking for pretexts to justify a pressure campaign it already had in the works.

“No matter what [Mr. Lai] says, the PRC will find some reason to find a negative connotation toward it,” Adm. Paparo said.

Asked if the United States military will defend Kinmen and Matsu, two Taiwanese islands just off the mainland that were once the site of fierce artillery battles between mainland communist forces and Nationalist forces on Taiwan 70 years ago, Adm. Paparo said the islands are not part of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.

The act is the leading policy document for the U.S. government and states that America will provide defensive arms to Taiwan on a scale based on the threat faced by the island. The law was passed after the United States dropped diplomatic recognition of Taiwan and shifted to Beijing in 1979.

Significant progress

A U.S. defense official said the PLA has made significant progress in developing joint warfare capabilities and sharply stepped up sustained naval activities around Taiwan in recent years.

Military analysts say an armed operation against Taiwan would prove a daunting challenge, even given China’s vastly bigger military forces and population.

“What they’re training potentially to do are extraordinarily difficult missions, to coordinate across all domains against a peer adversary with the United States a more capable adversary in many domains, or to execute what’s arguably the hardest conventional military operation known to man — an amphibious landing across an opposed body of water,” the official said.

The PLA has made impressive gains in joint warfighting but is not believed now to be fully ready for conducting a cross-strait attack.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has reportedly ordered the military to have the capability to carry out such an operation by 2027.

One significant advance saw seen in recent exercises involving two aircraft carriers, the official said.

“Now, if we take them at their word that the timeline is 2027 or after to have the capabilities in place, they still have some time to work and they will need it to get there,” the official said.

Both recent Joint Sword exercises showed an increased military posture for “steady state execution of what we would call the pressure campaign, as well as the surge activities for a short duration,” the official said.

Encroachment

Adm. Paparo said Chinese military encroachment near Taiwan’s outlying islands is “certainly a concern.”

For strategic reasons, however, China is unlikely to conduct an invasion of the islands because they are so close to the mainland, he said.

“It’d be just strategically unwise to affect an invasion of one of those islands when they’re not even cross channel [distance], it’s like cross harbor. If you take a look at the geography of those islands, they’re nestled right within the same essential archipelago as PRC islands,” he said, using the acronym for People’s Republic of China.

Adm. Paparo said the current military strategy for preventing a Chinese attack is called “Hellscape” – the use of large numbers of low-cost drones, both aerial and naval, that can strike invading Chinese forces and prevent a rapid takeover of the island. The mass drone strikes are designed to allow U.S. and allied forces to rapidly move to defend Taiwan and prevent a takeover.

The Hellscape strategy is being supported by the U.S. defense industry’s rapid development and procurement program known as Replicator.

“Replicator is the acquisition concept that is an enabler for Hellscape,” Adm. Paparo said. “Replicator is the concept for taking a design of a capability, pushing that design to multiple vendors who can achieve mass effects in a defense industrial base by having companies A, B and C produce a capability on spec.”

The emphasis for Replicator is to use accessible technologies applicable for 21st-century warfare, including unmanned, autonomous vessels around Taiwan, for “sea denial or air denial capabilities in tight, enclosed spaces that would be applicable to these geographies,” he said.

Adm. Paparo said the program is on track. “Systems are delivering, systems are being tested, and the concepts are built,” he said.

He did not elaborate on what has been a closely guarded Pentagon secret to deploy thousands of autonomous weapons for Hellscape by the end of the year.

The Hellscape strategy and Replicator seek to avoid American and allied forces having to gain air or maritime superiority in the skies and waters near Taiwan to successfully repel Beijing. Instead, the mass of low-cost drone weapons and other capabilities will deny air and maritime superiority to the PLA.

Replicator has allowed what in the past took 10 years to be accomplished in a year or two, a military source said.

Asked about the timetable, Adm. Paparo said: “I’m very happy for somebody to ascribe those time frames to them. I don’t want to promise anything because I’m not in the build business right now. I’m the employ business.”

Talking to China

Adm. Paparo in the interview also discussed his recent video call with Gen. Wu Yanan, PLA commander of the southern theater command that oversees the forces now clashing with Philippines vessels in the South China Sea over conflicting territorial claims.

Gen. Wu “was professional. He was unemotional. I credit him that,” Adm. Paparo said. But “he was not empowered to negotiate in any way, or to concede any points or even to agree to further meetings.”

The video meeting last month established the beginnings of a relationship that could become a future channel of communication between the two commanders, he said.

“But this is no more than that, and I don’t have any illusions that we’re going to be pen pals,” Adm. Paparo said.

Adm. Paparo said within the Chinese communist system the PLA is not in a strong position as a result of ongoing alleged corruption investigations of military personnel, including senior leaders of the Rocket Force. Gen. Wu did not have the authority to speak with any substance on any matters and recited a set of talking points in his call with Adm. Paparo.

“So he gave me a set of talking points. I refuted those talking points, and I raised some issues,” he said.

A Pentagon readout of the call said Adm. Paparo told the general during the Sept. 9 call that China was engaged in dangerous activities in the South China Sea and urged the PLA to abide by international law.

Gen. Wu also sought to promote President Xi’s global security initiative and global civilization initiative, major Beijing propaganda operations to promote the Chinese system around the world.

“I was unswayed in wanting to follow Xi Jinping initiatives,” Adm. Paparo said.

As for holding talks with other PLA commanders, such as the leader of the eastern theater command with forces opposite Taiwan, Adm. Paparo said exchanges are unlikely.

“I don’t think that it’s going to happen. I mean, strictly speaking, my equivalents are about the northern, southern and eastern theater commands. But no, I think the southern theater commander was probably hand-selected because he was not related to Taiwan,” he said.

“But,” he added, “my schedule is wide open.”

Asked about China’s large-scale nuclear arms buildup, Adm. Paparo said the warhead stockpile is expected to grow from around 500 warheads now to about 1,000 warheads in the next seven years.

China’s recent flight test of a DF-31 intercontinental ballistic missile over the Pacific – the first such test since 1980 – highlights the continuing buildup, he said. The missile was fired from Hainan Island in the South China Sea and flew 7,500 miles, landing north of French Polynesia.

Adm. Paparo said the Chinese government provided advance notice of the test. That appeared to signal Beijing is seeking some type of stability.

Adm. Paparo said he is less concerned about the nuclear buildup because the U.S. nuclear arsenal is eight times larger. “I stay away from saying ‘This is outrageous, they’re building up their nuclear arsenal.’ But it is concerning,” he said.

Asked about China’s aggressive use of information operations to influence U.S. and foreign public opinion, Adm. Paparo said such efforts are a concern “because of their unfettered ability to lie in the public space.”

The impact is being felt largely in what is called “the Global South” – nations of what once was called the developing world – where false narratives about the United Staes and U.S. allies and partners are being pushed, he said.

“It’s something for me to worry about, but it’s not necessarily my job to counter it, other than to be aware of it and to be ready as directed by the National Security Council to bring resources to bear,” he said.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said this week that the administration has been considering the creation of a disinformation “czar” to lead counter-disinformation efforts.

Adm. Paparo, who recently returned from a visit to Indonesia, said Chinese anti-U.S. propaganda does not appear to be working in the large and influential Southeast Asian nation.

“Pro-American opinion there is 64%, despite all [the Chinese] efforts,” he said. “So, people are smart and you have to have some faith at some point they will get wise to their lies if we maintain our own integrity in  upholding our own values.”

• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.