A US military expert said China may be trying to take over Taiwan by using a strategy of “economic entanglement.”

Barry Watts, a senior fellow with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told a US congressional commission this week: “Why use military force if economic entanglement leading to economic capture is succeeding?”

In testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Watts said that the most common scenarios for a conflict between the US and China were built around a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan.