https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...?ocid=msedgdhp
China seems set to overfly Taiwan with fighter jets. Such an operation would be designed to warn the U.S. against increasing its support for Taiwan. And second, to test whether President Tsai Ing-wen is willing to fire on Chinese aircraft.
The latest warning of an impending overflight came on Thursday in the Global Times newspaper. The primary mouthpiece of Beijing's Communist Party messaging to the west, the paper warned that the "Deployment of US forces to Taiwan means war." This refers to recent U.S. Military journal articles hypothesizing how best the Pentagon could help Taiwan defeat a Chinese invasion in any conflict. Apparently sensing that the Trump administration may soon send a more senior diplomat to visit the island, the editorial added that "It is not known how the US and Taiwan will make further provocations, but the response of the mainland is certain. If the U.S. and Taiwan raise the level of officials for engagement, the mainland will firmly respond by sending PLA fighter jets over the island of Taiwan to claim sovereignty."The editorial also pointed out that the PLA Air Force has already moved towards intruding over Taiwan's airspace. "PLA fighter jets recently crossed the so-called middle line of the Taiwan Straits on a large scale," it noted, "clearly drawing the red line that the US and Taiwan must not further collude. The
Global Times has understood that PLA fighter jets were as closest as only seconds away from the coast of Taiwan. They were only one step away from flying over the island of Taiwan."
These threats should not be taken lightly.
China views Taiwan as a breakaway province which must, for reasons of Communist Party credibility and national honor, be brought back to the motherland. If Beijing believes that Taiwan is splitting too far from its grasp,
it will use force in an effort to compel the island nation's subjugation. But if China does indeed overfly Taiwan with fighter jets, the Taiwanese government will face a moment of great consequence. To allow those fighters to pass over its territory unchallenged would be a humiliating and dangerous show of timidity. Of course, to shoot down any fighters would risk Beijing's immediate escalation to conflict. Here we see an ultimate Catch-22.
Still, Xi Jinping also faces great risks. While his recapture of Taiwan would consolidate his legacy desire to become the next Mao Zedong master of Chinese destiny,
defeat would risk the Communist Party's mainland survival. It is in America's interest to reinforce Xi's perception of the latter risk, while mitigating his desire to carry forward an invasion.
Put simply, for China, Taiwan, and the U.S., tensions and the reciprocal stakes are growing very quickly.