WASHINGTON, July 30: China, boosting military spending and deploying growing numbers of ballistic missiles, is pursuing a strategy for a possible conflict in the Taiwan Strait aimed at bringing Taiwan to its knees before America has a chance to intervene, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

The Defence Department issued its annual congressionally mandated report on Chinese military power, which emphasized a view that China is hard at work preparing for a potential war over Taiwan.

China is “exploring coercive strategies” and embraces a doctrine of pre-emption emphasizing “surprise, deception and shock” in the opening phase of such a conflict, the report said.

China is making or buying weapons intended to impede the intervention of U.S. forces in a Taiwan conflict, the report added. It called these “assassin’s mace” weapons systems.

Examples include the development of variants of a short-range ballistic missile that would increase its reach and enable it to hit Okinawa, where U.S. Marines are based. The report also noted that China has acquired from Russia two Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyers, with two more on the way, which could pose a threat to U.S. aircraft carriers.

“Preparing for a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait is the primary driver for China’s military modernization,” the report said.

“While it professes a preference for resolving the Taiwan issue peacefully, Beijing is also seeking credible military options. Should China use force against Taiwan, its primary goal likely would be to compel a quick, negotiated solution on terms favorable to Beijing,” the report added.

The report also said China’s military training exercises “increasingly focus on the United States as an adversary”.

“While seeing opportunity and benefit in interactions with the US — primarily in terms of trade and technology — Beijing apparently believes that the United States poses a significant long-term challenge,” the Pentagon stated. The report estimated that China has an annual military budget of 45 billion to $65 billion dollars — compared to the 20 billion dollar figure announced by Beijing last

year — and projects that this budget “could increase in real terms three- to four-fold by 2020”.—Reuters