CIA Director William Burns: “I wouldn’t underestimate” Xi’s ambitions for Taiwan

Intelligence shows Chinese president Xi Jinping has instructed his country’s army to be “ready by 2027 to conduct a successful invasion” of Taiwan, CIA Director William Burns said this week, though he cautioned that it was not clear whether Xi had actually decided to use military force for unification. “Our assessment at CIA is that I wouldn’t underestimate President Xi’s ambitions with regard to Taiwan,” Burns said, adding that Xi had watched Russian president Vladimir Putin’s experience in Ukraine “very carefully,” and come away “a little bit unsettled and sobered” by Moscow’s performance on the battlefield. “We know as a…