Bloomberg Surveillance · Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Dennis Blair, former Director of National Intelligence, argues that commentary on China's military buildup is misguided and doesn't consider the real military tasks involved. He specifically addresses the Taiwan situation, emphasizing that China's ambition to unify with Taiwan has been thwarted by Taiwan's development and US policy.
“I think that the there are big differences between the situation with the Soviet Union. Our information on China is much more clear. It's more of an out in the open debate. And the problem is that it has not been put in terms of the real military tasks involved. Most of the commentary on it has been just look how many ships China's building, Look how many Look how many airplane missiles and nuclear weapons? And that means that they are going to overtake the United States. And what I try to do is put it in the context of the very tough military missions that faced China due to a number of factors.”
“China has wanted to end the finished the civil war by capturing what they see as the last remaining rebel holdout. And this has been true from now Dung Chouping all the way to the to the recent side. So this has been a long standing, a long standing ambition of China, and in fact, China's regime has put a lot of its legitimacy on doing that. But in the meantime, Taiwan has been able to defend itself. It's become a vibrant democracy, it's become a very important economic power in its own and its own right, drawn closer to the United States.”