China's People's Liberation Army has been closely studying President Donald Trump's military campaign against Iran, extracting lessons that could prove critical in any future confrontation over Taiwan. Western officials familiar with the matter have described the intelligence China is gathering as "highly valuable."
Beijing is closely observing America's military performance and would almost certainly factor the findings into contingency plans for Taiwan - a self-governing island China claims as its territory, according to "Hvylya", citing Bloomberg. The officials requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.
President Xi Jinping would probably welcome the diversion of US attention and resources from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East, the officials said. They pointed to the Pentagon's redeployment of military assets from Asia to Iran as a tangible reason for China's military to view the strategic balance as shifting in its favor.
Xi has so far stayed silent on the conflict engulfing Iran, a major Chinese partner, as officials in Beijing assess the full scale of the fallout. While China has repeatedly said Taiwan must be brought under its control - by force if necessary - it has not indicated any imminent preparations to act.
The perceived advantage for China suggests a second US adversary is benefiting from Trump's war, after Western allies warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin was already emerging as an inadvertent winner thanks to rising oil prices and eased US sanctions.
Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the nationalist tabloid Global Times, wrote on Weibo that the conflict had exposed how "strained" US military capabilities have become. China's Ministry of Defense did not respond to Bloomberg's request for comment.
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