China Could Seize Taiwan Offshore Islands Within 6 Months: Report

China could seize control of Taiwan’s offshore Kinmen Islands within the next six months, believing that the United States would not take a forceful response to its aggression, according to a new report. Researchers from the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute warned that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping may believe that he has a “unique opportunity” over the coming months to carry out a short-of-war coercion campaign against the Kinmen Islands, given the political landscape in both Taiwan and the United States. “In the United States, President Joe Biden is in his lame-duck period after announcing his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race. The U.S. domestic political landscape is turbulent and divisive amid the ongoing election, the foreign policy establishment is preoccupied with ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the U.S. populace has little appetite for more war,” the researchers wrote in their report that was made public on Aug. 21....