I legitimately believe 2027 is the year that PRC will go for reunification, proactively if an opportunity doesn't naturally present itself. The PLA video aside I'll present one more evidence:
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This is state council's plan for national transportation backbone, to be completed by 2035. Here there's a railway link across the strait to Taipei. If such a cross strait link is to be completed by 2035 it would seem to me that latest point that reunification needs to be completed would be 2027, to allow 8 years to surveying and construction of the link. Here's details from the state council about this plan specifically mentioning a Fujian to Taipei link:
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These plans were released in 2021.
But when it comes to defending this I do ask myself "am I seeing things because I want them to be there?" and I'm not sure if there's a good answer to this. Before 24/02/2022 for example my feeling on Ukraine-Russia was something like "war seems unlikely but I wouldn't rule it out". There were plenty of people here on this forum that held the opposite opinion and they were sure that Russia was about to invade and they could present evidence like Russia building field hospitals near the border and transporting blood supplies there. Yet others could easily argue that by making exercises seem more "real" Russia is applying pressure in order to fool people into thinking they're about to start a war and so get favourable outcome during negotiation.
When the shoe is on the other foot and I think reunification is likely in 2027, I also realize that any evidence I present could also be waved off as "China is bluffing to try to get Taiwan to come to the negotiation table" and I just don't think there's a way to defend it in a way that someone will say "okay I agree, you've removed all doubt in my mind" until the day it actually happens.
Again, that is at best circumstantial and could be reflective of any sort of aspiration at the time in which they hoped political circumstances could allow Chinese high speed rail to have spread to Taiwan.
This may be a reflection of my own caution in interpreting intent versus preparedness, but fundamentally the question we are testing is:
"Is there evidence that there has been an active Chinese government plan for multiple years to seek to
proactively initiate a conflict over Taiwan in the year 2027?"
It is one thing to advance their military capability in a manner to be able to best deal with a conflict over Taiwan and/or the region if it occurred in the future.
And it is also another thing for public relations and political statements and/or plans to espouse aspirational hopes around general cross-strait resolve or aspirations for the distant future.
And it is another thing yet again, for China to be actively preparing for multiple years to initiate conflict of their own accord with preparations and planning for it being undertaken since the early 2020s if not earlier (by your own hypothesis). Frankly speaking, if they had been planning to wage a Taiwan conflict of their own initiative by the 2027 year, then all of their political, economic and military planning, posturing and procurement and priorities up to this point would be stupid and inane, at the national level. Their behaviour is one of a nation hoping for peace but preparing to be able to use military force if that is the only option left -- it is not of a nation that has been actively planning and preparing for multiple years to use military conflict of their own initiative.
The comparison with Russia and Ukraine is worth mentioning in relation to this, only in the specific comparison that one could not make the argument that Russia was actively intending to wage a conflict in Ukraine of this scale in the specific year 2022 starting multiple years before, but rather that it was geopolitical circumstances in the years leading up to it which in many ways forced their hand in which the use of military force was seen as the least bad option available to them. However, if you were in the year 2015, one could hardly suggest that a conflict in 2022 of the scale we saw last year to now as being one that was preordained and intended by Russia. Large scale exercises in the years leading up to 2022 is exactly that -- large scale exercises intended to prepare for contingencies if they occurred.
It is possible that a conflict occurs in 2027 due to a combination of geopolitical factors forcing China's hand in a similar way, and yes in that context naturally the Chinese government and the PLA at large would try to prepare the best for a variety of contingencies and eventualities if they occurred.
After all, many of us have considered for multiple years that the period from 2025-2030 would be one of significant risk and concern due to the shifting balance of geostrategic power, the balance of military power, and political circumstances in Taiwan and the US, and chances are the PLA have extensively prepared for such a situation if a conflict was forced upon them in that time period.
But that is very different to China and the PLA actively intending to initiate a conflict of their own initiative in given year XYZ.
Frankly, if that is what they intended to do in the year 2027, then for the last few years we should have been seeing much more disciplined, targeted and larger scale procurement focused on shorter term projects and more Taiwan oriented capabilities. Additionally, we should be seeing large scale societal and civil defense hardening and preparedness even if it was in the form of "routine exercises. Most prevalent, would be a significant shift and urgency in a change of economic and military priorities.
Let's say at some point in the future, hypothetically the PLA accures the capabilities to roflstomp and comprehensively defeat the ROC military in 24 hours and also to deter the US and co from intervening. Having that capability still would not entail an active intent to initiate a conflict on XYZ year or date, as it would still require the political decision to do so. What a high level of capability and preparedness does offer, is the freedom to make decisions or respond accordingly in the best way possible.
Distilling it all down, my point is that geostrategic preparedness and military readiness to be able to react on contingencies forced upon a nation, is very very different to having long term active intent and preparations for conflict on a nation's own time/schedule.
For our purposes, both on this forum but especially on Reddit where you are active, frankly I do not see there is any basis to make claims that China has been preparing to initiate a conflict in the year 2027 and is certainly something I will challenge when I see it.
I would encourage people to carefully consider whether their interpretation of evidence for a hypothesis as massive as "China's been preparing to initiate war of their own accord since the early 2020s for 2027" is being influenced by personal desires to see the Taiwan question solved and/or to see the ROC military defeated.
Edit: I would also add, that if as of August 2023 that if I entertain the idea of China actually wanting to initiate a conflict over Taiwan in the year 2027 for the purposes of AR, then right now I think they are woefully underprepared in almost all domains and have not undertaken the massive comprehensive national scale economic, civil defense, industrial hardening, and reallocation of military and economic priorities that would be needed to ensure a victory that is not pyrrhic or compromising their medium to long term geopolitical prospects after the conclusion of an AR situation.
"To create even greater glory"
