A Navy SEAL unit that killed Osama bin Laden may be training Taiwanese forces to defeat a possible Chinese invasion, experts say

But experts from the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War said in May that an aggressive Chinese coercion campaign — short of war but still threatening — was more likely than a full-scale invasion and that the US needed to prepare for such an eventuality.

Adm. Paparo told Japan’s Nikkei newspaper in May that China’s two-day drills around the island “looked like a rehearsal” for an invasion.

A June report from the American think tank RAND Corp. said the US might have to defend Taiwan alone, as several of its biggest allies were unlikely to commit troops.

Meanwhile, US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said this week that he’d seen growing concern and alarm from other countries in the Indo-Pacific region over China’s capabilities and intentions over the past 15 years.

Speaking at a keynote address at an Air & Space Forces Association convention, he said that the threat of a war between the US and China was growing.

“I am not saying war in the Pacific is imminent or inevitable. It is not,” Kendall said. “But I am saying that the likelihood is increasing and will continue to do so.”