Exclusive | Former U.S. Intel Chief: Stalling Taiwan’s Defense Bill Is Inviting Tyranny

Taiwan's legislature has yet to reach consensus on a proposed eight-year, NT$1.25 trillion special defense appropriations bill—formally titled the Special Act for Strengthening Defense Resilience and Asymmetric Capabilities—after a fourth round of cross-party negotiations on Thursday, May 7, failed to produce agreement. A floor vote could come as early as Friday.

Washington has watched the bill's progress with mounting concern. The American Institute in Taiwan's (AIT) Taipei office director Raymond Greene has twice called on Kuomintang (KMT) chairperson Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) to press for passage. Retired Rear Admiral Michael Studeman, former director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), who recently visited Taipei, was more blunt: if Taiwan does not want to live under Chinese Communist Party tyranny, the legislature needs to pass the defense bill and give Taiwan more tools to defend itself.

Drawing on conditions within China's own leadership, Studeman made his warning concrete. Even senior CCP officials live in a state of persistent anxiety, he said—a condition he described as the defining feature of authoritarian rule. "If you want to know what tyranny feels like, do nothing, pass nothing, and tyranny will come find you," he said. "If you want to control your own future, you have to understand that you need to invest an enormous amount of time, energy, and resources to protect yourself. That is what the Defense Special Act is about."

Studeman, 58, retired in 2023 after serving as director of the ONI. Before that posting, he was intelligence director for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command—a role whose area of responsibility includes Taiwan—and earlier served as intelligence director for U.S. Southern Command, covering Latin America.

His Indo-Pacific tenure included two covert visits to Taiwan, during which he briefed then-President Tsai Ing-wen and senior national security officials. Those visits were the highest-ranking active-duty U.S. military officer contacts with Taiwan since Washington severed formal diplomatic relations in 1979.

Studeman spoke with Storm Mediain Taipei on May 1, addressing a range of issues including the impact of the PLA's senior leadership purges on Xi Jinping's calculus regarding Taiwan, the timeline of military risk, and what Taiwan can do to shape the conditions that will determine its future.

On the purges, Studeman said that anyone holding a senior position in the CCP system may not fully understand how the entire party-state apparatus operates, and spends considerable time simply trying to stay oriented within it. That uncertainty breeds fear that cannot be shaken. The Communist Party's structure, he said, functions as near-total authoritarian control, in which everything serves the party-state. "When you see others at the top being purged, being pulled down from their positions quickly, it's almost impossible to feel secure," he said. "You watch your words, you look over your shoulder—that is what life under autocracy or tyranny looks like. If Taiwan doesn't think seriously about investing the necessary resources to protect itself, that is the reality ordinary Taiwanese people could face."

The concept of a "Davidson Window"—the period before 2027 during which China could develop sufficient military capability to resist U.S. intervention in a Taiwan contingency—has become a standard reference point in Washington's security discussions. The term originates from 2021 congressional testimony by then-Indo-Pacific Command commander Admiral Philip Davidson, who warned that Beijing could be positioned to act militarily against Taiwan within that timeframe, and that the United States and its allies needed to use the intervening years to build offsetting capabilities.

Studeman accepts the basic framework but revises the timeline. The most dangerous period for Taiwan, he argues, is not 2027 itself but the years immediately following: from 2028 to 2032, after Xi Jinping secures a fourth five-year term at the CCP's 21st National Congress in autumn 2027.

He is careful to distinguish between capability and intent. "This is not saying that China will use force or impose a blockade in 2027," he said. "What it means is that Xi Jinping has directed the PLA to be capable of taking Taiwan by 2027." The Davidson Window, he added, was never simply one general's view—it reflects a broader consensus within U.S. political-military institutions, and has been reinforced by Xi's own public statements as well as U.S. intelligence assessments.

Studeman does not expect Xi to take military action against Taiwan before the CCP's 21st National Congress in autumn 2027. Xi needs internal and external stability during this period to secure a smooth transition into a fourth term as general secretary and state president.

But once that fourth term is locked in, the restraints loosen. Xi will be older—he is currently 72—less patient, and more willing to take risks. Critically, Studeman argues, the PLA's senior leadership has been largely purged of officers capable of delivering honest assessments, including figures such as Zhang Youxia. Their replacements, he suggests, are likely to be yes-men with neither the standing nor the inclination to counsel restraint or apply the brakes.

The convergence of these factors—confirmed tenure, advanced age, diminished internal checks—is what makes 2028 to 2032 the genuinely dangerous window. "Xi Jinping is deeply fixated on resolving what he calls the Taiwan question," Studeman said. "He has made extensive preparations ideologically, in military power, and in economic securitization. What we are seeing is a major power preparing itself for the hardships that would follow a move on Taiwan. That is deeply concerning."

Against that backdrop, Studeman frames Taiwan's choices in strategic rather than fatalistic terms. Beijing's calculations, he notes, are not fixed—they depend on variables that Taiwan, the United States, and allied nations can actively influence: the political will of allies, collective military strength, the depth of multilateral cooperation, and developments within China itself.

"Xi Jinping, under certain conditions, may very much want to use force—so you need to actively influence those conditions rather than be driven by them," he said. "If you want to control your own destiny, you have to influence those conditions, build your own strength, make yourself stronger and more resilient—not be seen as easy prey."

No outcome is predetermined, he added. "All of these factors will keep evolving. What we can do is make them look as complicated and costly as possible from China's perspective, and thereby reduce the chances of them taking a risk."

Original Article in Chinese

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