CHINA is convinced it now needs to hit America “hard and early ” in a surprise Pearl Harbor-style attack to invade Taiwan, a leading expert has warned.

Oriana Skylar Mastro, a fellow at Stanford University, told The Sun Online how Beijing increasingly views an invasion of the island as inseparable from a war with the US.

It comes as massive Chinese military exercises are currently taking place off Taiwan following the visit by US politician Nancy Pelosi.

She is the third in line to the presidency and the most senior US figure to visit the self-governing island in decades.

Mastro told The Sun Online these types of blockade war games are set to become more commonplace as the threat of war increasingly looms.

She explained that Beijing now believes it also has to fight the US if it is to fulfil its long cherished goal of invading Taiwan and “reuniting” with the mainland.

Mastro believes the most likely way such a conflict would play out is with a Pearl Harbor-style attack on US forces in the region.

It would be designed to try and knock out US forces so they could not react to stop China gaining a foothold in Taiwan, which it regards as its territory.

The strategic gamble would be an attempt to stall a wider war – just as Japan hoped when they attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, drawing the US into World War Two.

It would be one of the chilling factors China would have to weigh up if decides the only way to “reunification” with Taiwan is an invasion.

“It’s about hitting hard and early so we can’t get boots on the island before the United States can launch a response,” Mastro told The Sun Online.

She went on: “My argument is that the more people like Pelosi try to make the US commitment clear, then the more certain the Chinese are of our commitment – and the more likely a Pearl Harbor-style attack is.”

Washington has always stopped short of outright backing for Taiwan in the event of war with China or supported independence for the island.

Instead it has maintained a policy of so-called “strategic ambiguity” aimed at not provoking Beijing and has said backs the idea of ‘One China’.

But in recently Joe Biden broke with convention and responded “yes” when asked if the US would come to Taiwan’s aid if the island was attacked by China.

Beijing views any engagement between Washington and Taipei as a US endorsement of the island’s independence.

Pelosi is a vocal supporter of Taiwan trip to the island earlier this week she was the most senior US politician to visit Taiwan in a quarter of a century, which infuriated China.

During her trip the Speaker of the House of Representatives voiced America’s support for Taiwan and seemed to have called Beijing’s bluff after it hinted it might shoot down her plane.

Japan, South Korea and the island of Guam are just some of the locations which serve the US army, navy and air force near China and Taiwan.

Guam has 6,000 servicemen on the island, South Korea hosts 26,000, while Japan has 56,000.

And the main source of power for Washington in the region is the mighty Seventh Fleet.

The fleet deploys between 50 to 70 warships, including aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers, cruisers and assault ships.

Some 27,000 sailors and marines are service with the fleet – which also has around 150 aircraft.

And at the core of the fleet is the Fifth Carrier Strike Group, currently headed by USS Ronald Reagan – which is currently operating close to Taiwan.