whatyareckon

By Dean Cheng ~

For the last several weeks, tensions have roiled the Taiwan Straits. China has sent ever larger numbers of combat aircraft across the center line of the straits and into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, compelling their Taiwanese counterparts to respond.

The intricate ballet of dispatching multiple types of aircraft from different airbases, coordinating their flight profiles, fuel states, and altitudes, isn’t some ad hoc activity. These are extensively planned operations.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a business forum with Italian and Chinese businessmen at Quirinale Palace on March 22, 2019, in Rome. (Photo: Alessandra Benedetti – Corbis/Getty Images)

One goal of these provocations is to intimidate the people of Taiwan and their government. Like Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe at the United Nations, Chinese PresidentXi Jinping is warning Taiwan, “We can bury you!”

ButXi has another motive. The Chinese Communist Party will…