Notes

Monarchs of the sea. On February 26, Beijing’s navy conducted live-fire exercises about 45 miles from Taiwan’s largest port, Kaohsiung. As part of the drill, more than 30 aircraft from the Chinese army also flew near the island.

The site overlaps several shipping lanes in the Taiwan Strait that connect East Asia to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. For some reason, Beijing didn’t offer the usual advance notification for shipping and air traffic in the area.

Just a few days earlier, Chinese naval vessels had undertaken two days of live-fire drills in the waters between Australia and New Zealand. Those drills forced commercial flights between the countries to divert around the exercises. New Zealand’s defense minister, Judith Collins, says Beijing had never sent a force armed with such “extremely capable” weapons to conduct a drill like that: “It’s certainly a change.”

Those exercises came a week after a Chinese fighter jet fired flares in front of an Australian surveillance plane over the South China Sea. Australia lodged a complaint with Beijing over it.

What is China doing?

In this week’s member’s dispatch, we connect the dots to our conversation with Isaac B. Kardon on China’s preparations for a potential invasion of Taiwan and even bigger ambitions in the region …

—Michael Bluhm