In March 2021, Admiral Philip S. Davidson, then commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Beijing was accelerating its ambition to supplant the United States and its leadership role in the rules-based international order. Davidson warned that China appeared to be making progress on goals it had long said it hoped to achieve by 2050. Taking Taiwan, he assessed, was clearly one of Beijing’s major goals before then, and the threat could manifest itself during the 2020s, perhaps within the next six years.
Davidson’s written testimony also noted that Beijing had announced plans to accelerate military modernization in time for the centenary of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in 2027. Since then, 2027 has become an important date in debates over the PLA’s capabilities and the risk of conflict across the Taiwan Strait.
But the “Davidson Window” should not be interpreted as a war timetable.
Davidson’s comments were initially interpreted by media and analysts as suggesting that 2027 was China’s timetable for using force against Taiwan. U.S. intelligence assessments have since made this interpretation more cautious. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence Annual Threat Assessment 2026 said that Chinese leaders are not currently considering an invasion of Taiwan in 2027 and have no fixed timetable for achieving unification.
Former CIA Director William J. Burns made a similar distinction. He said US intelligence indicated that Xi Jinping had asked the PLA to be ready by 2027 to successfully carry out an invasion of Taiwan. But Burns also stressed that this did not mean Xi had decided to invade in 2027, or any other specific year.
The US Department of Defense China Military Development Report 2025 pointed in a similar direction. Beijing’s pressure campaign against Taiwan is not limited to military preparations for a full-scale invasion. It combines diplomatic, informational, military and economic tools to advance unification goals below the threshold of war. The report also discusses “coercion without war” as a possible option for China, including limited military actions, economic pressure, diplomatic isolation, information manipulation and cognitive warfare designed to force Taiwan into negotiations or political concessions.
The possibility of a joint blockade campaign is particularly worrying. China could use air and sea blockades to disrupt Taiwan’s essential imports, while combining these measures with electronic warfare, cyberattacks, and information operations to force Taiwan to negotiate or surrender.
Taken together, these assessments suggest that Beijing is more likely, at least for now, to continue shaping the conditions for eventual cross-Strait unification through measures below the threshold of armed conflict rather than immediately launching a full-scale invasion.
For Taiwan, then, the most immediate danger is not necessarily a sudden large-scale war in any given year. This is the continued maturation of Beijing’s ability to coerce Taiwan into talks through gray zone pressure.
The “Davidson window” is better understood as a “capability window.” It does not identify a date when war should break out. This is the moment when Beijing’s military power, combined with multiple instruments of coercion, could become increasingly useful in exerting pressure against Taiwan.
However, military capacity alone is not enough to assess the risk of war in the Taiwan Strait. The PLA does not decide alone whether to fight. The final decision rests with Xi Jinping.
This means that another window must be considered alongside the “Davidson window”: a “confidence window”. This refers to Xi’s confidence in the loyalty, command structure, equipment and real combat effectiveness of the PLA to achieve his goal. We can call it the “Xi window”.
The “Davidson window” asks whether the PLA is ready to fight. The “Xi window” asks whether Xi trusts the PLA enough to fight and win.
The distinction is important because China’s military command and defense industrial systems have been shaken in recent years by corruption investigations and political purges. The removal of senior officers and the problems within Rocket Force and the equipment development system are not simply matters of discipline or loyalty. They also affect Xi’s judgment on the reliability of the PLA.
If Xi doubts the loyalty of top commanders, the integrity of weapons systems, or the real combat effectiveness of his military, he may hesitate to launch a large-scale operation against Taiwan, even if the PLA’s capabilities continue to improve. In the short term, these doubts could slow down the most extreme military option. But they could also increase Beijing’s reliance on gray zone tactics.
This does not mean that the pressure on Taiwan will diminish. Instead, the level of risk may change. High-intensity wars could be delayed, while coercion below the threshold of war would become more frequent, more sophisticated, and more integrated.
The key question is not simply when a war might break out. A more useful strategic question is how the “Davidson window” (capability window) and the “Xi window” (confidence window) interact. Do they overlap? Does one arrive before the other? Different answers indicate different forms of coercion.
If the two windows overlap, the Taiwan Strait would enter a truly high-risk period. Beijing would believe both that its military capabilities were nearing maturity and that the PLA was loyal, reliable, and operationally ready. In this scenario, Taiwan could face a combination of blockade operations, precision strikes, pressure against offshore islands, and higher-intensity joint military coercion. A full-scale amphibious invasion would remain the most difficult and dangerous option, but it would be part of a broader coercive menu.
If the “Davidson window” opens before the “Xi window”, the risk would be different. China’s military capabilities would continue to grow, but Xi would still not have full confidence in this force. Beijing would then be more likely to pursue a strategy of using military pressure to force negotiations. Military exercises could become more routine. Blockade rehearsals could become more institutionalized. Chinese coast guard enforcement operations could become more aggressive. Cyber operations and cognitive warfare could become more advanced. The pressure would continue, but below the threshold of war.
The opposite scenario is also dangerous. If the “Xi window” opens before the “Davidson window,” political pressure and Xi’s subjective confidence could take precedence over real military preparation. In this case, the greatest danger will not be a full-scale invasion, but a premature or limited act of military adventurism. Beijing could step up its efforts by imposing an air or sea blockade, putting pressure on Taiwan’s offshore islands, launching cyber and electronic attacks, or taking other gray zone measures. The path forward will depend heavily on the leader’s political goals and tolerance for escalation.
Taiwan should not base its national strategy on predicting a full-scale war in any given year. The most important task is to prepare for different combinations of capabilities, trust, and coercion, depending on how the “Davidson window” meets the “Xi window.”
This requires sustained political and military war games, stronger deterrence, deeper social resilience, and a greater capacity to withstand long-term pressures. Taiwan’s goal should not be simply to guess when Beijing might act. This would ensure that even if Xi’s window of confidence opens, Beijing still sees a capacity gap that makes coercion costly, uncertain and unlikely to succeed.