Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.

The highlights this week: The U.S. military prioritizes deterring a conflict over Taiwan, the Kremlin confirms Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia, and Beijing weighs fentanyl talks with Washington as a tariff off-ramp.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.

The highlights this week: The U.S. military prioritizes deterring a conflict over Taiwan, the Kremlin confirms Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia, and Beijing weighs fentanyl talks with Washington as a tariff off-ramp.

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The U.S. Defense Department is becoming more focused on a hypothetical conflict with China—at the same time as U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies are undercutting alliances in the Asia-Pacific.

The Pentagon has outlined plans to reconfigure the U.S. military for great-power struggles instead of sporadic counterinsurgencies. An internal guidance memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which appears to be based on the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, identifies China as the United States’ “sole pacing threat.” Deterring a Chinese seizure of Taiwan is a top priority, and the United States is expected to “assume risk in other theaters” accordingly.

The reconfiguration draws inspiration from the controversial overhaul of the U.S. Marine Corps in 2020, which reoriented the branch from its focus on tactical flexibility toward becoming an island-hopping force in a Pacific conflict. But this strategy only makes sense if one believes that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is inevitable in the next few years and that a wider war with the United States would follow.

This idea has been a fixation in Washington for years. Just last week, U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander Adm. Samuel Paparo brought up the possibility of China invading Taiwan in 2027, the date of the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Paparo’s subordinate, Gen. Ronald Clark, echoed similar concerns in a recent interview. To his credit, Paparo correctly stated that Chinese........

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