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The search for certainty in the face of looming danger is understandable—but in the Indo-Pacific, setting a timeline for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) war of aggression is not just futile; it is dangerous. There is no strategic advantage in guessing whether Beijing will strike in 2027, 2035, 2049 or some other year plucked from ceremonial posturing or bureaucratic projections. Such dates are mirages that distract from the real levers of deterrence. The CCP’s decision to wage war—against Taiwan, the Philippines, or others in the region—is not simply a matter of internal calendar-keeping or nationalist theater. It is a decision determined by four decisive variables: intent, capabilities, cost, and opportunities. While China may own the first two, it does not own the latter. That distinction holds the key to strategic clarity.

There is no mystery surrounding Beijing’s intent. Xi Jinping and the CCP leadership have repeatedly declared their desire to bring Taiwan under control, subjugate regional rivals, and supplant the United States as the primary power in Asia. The CCP has never hidden its ambition to revise the international order through force if necessary. Their intent is ideological, expansionist, and personal—rooted in the Party’s need for legitimacy, and Xi’s dictatorial vainglory for a “legacy of unification.�

Just as clear are the capabilities the CCP has built: a vast missile arsenal, the world’s largest navy by ship count, advanced surveillance and electronic warfare capabilities, and increasingly hardened cyber operations. Militarily, China believes it can strike fast, degrade defenses, and prevent U.S. intervention through denial strategies. It also mistakes America’s aversion to casualty for lack of national resolve to fight back militarily, just like the Japanese did before Pearl Harbor, and the North Korean communists did before the invasion of South Korea in 1950.

But even if these two variables—intent and capabilities are strong and stable—they are insufficient for war. They are the loaded gun. But they do not determine when, or if, it is fired.

What the CCP cannot control—what no autocrat can control—are the external circumstances that determine whether war is opportune or prohibitively costly. The cost of war, especially against a coalition of advanced democracies, can be unbearable. Loss of global trade, financial isolation, domestic unrest, military quagmire—these are not dictated by Beijing’s planners alone, but by the choices of others.

Likewise, opportunities for aggression do not appear because the CCP wills them into being. They emerge only if deterrence is weak, alliances are divided, or democratic nations are distracted. If Taiwan is diplomatically isolated, the Philippines unprotected, and Washington ambivalent, then opportunity grows. But if Taipei is hardened, Manila bolstered, Tokyo mobilized, and the U.S. resolute, then the CCP sees no open door—only a fortified wall.

Thus, the timing of aggression is not Beijing’s alone to choose. It is as much, if not more, in the hands of those who would resist.

Because intent and capability are constants—and cost and opportunity are variables—strategic logic dictates that the timeline of aggression is not Beijing’s alone. It is shared, and potentially controlled, by the United States and its allies.

The fixation on 2027 or other calendarial coincidences, often derived from arbitrary CCP milestones or lazy assumptions about military modernization timelines, obscures this reality. These dates are not prophecies. They are projections—static models in a dynamic battlefield. History is littered with missed predictions because adversaries mistook authoritarian pageantry for strategic inevitability.

Instead of peering into Beijing’s parade grounds or war colleges, Washington, Tokyo, Manila, and Taipei should look to their own arsenals of deterrence. It is not enough to guess when China will act. We must shape the environment so that China cannot act—either because the cost is too high, or the opportunity never materializes.

By asserting control over the cost and opportunity dimensions of conflict, the free world can do two things: postpone or cancel Beijing’s war, and, if necessary, choose the time and terrain for confrontation. This is the essence of strategic primacy—not passive waiting, but active shaping.

When we strengthen alliances, harden defenses, increase military presence, and clarify our will to act, we deny the CCP both advantage and initiative. We shift the calculus. In doing so, we force Beijing not into a timetable of its own choosing, but into a box of ours.

If conflict is inevitable, better it erupts on our terms—when we are best prepared, with maximum support, in favorable conditions—than in a moment of our distraction and their perceived ascendancy.

Strategists who tie themselves to the CCP’s calendar surrender initiative and agency. They confuse prediction with preparation. They mistake symmetry for control. The future of the Indo-Pacific will not be decided by whether China wants war in 2027 or 2035. It will be decided by whether we—those who value peace and liberty—make it impossible for that war to succeed, at any time.

Let us, then, throw out the CCP’s calendar. Let us stop building policies around speculative dates and start shaping realities. The clock of conflict ticks not in Beijing, but in Washington, Tokyo, Manila, and Taipei. It is time we take ownership of it.