Nearly a month after U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s explosive visit to Taiwan, there is no sign of letting up on the part of China or the United States on the autonomous island.

This week, the Taiwanese army fire warning shots to a Chinese drone for the first time in history, highlighting rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Earlier, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen ordered her armed forces to adopt “strong countermeasures” against any further Chinese provocation.

In recent weeks, China has conducted massive military exercises in a muscular expression of its displeasure with Pelosi’s visit, which has bolstered its ability to wage war in the 21st century in multiple fields.

After exercising extreme restraint, largely to avoid escalating regional tensions, Taiwanese defense officials have now sworn to answer in kind to China’s “high-intensity” military activities in the self-governing island nation’s “inland sea”.

“For planes and ships that have entered our 12-nautical-mile sea and air territory, the national army will exercise its right of self-defense and counterattack without exception,” said Lin Wen-Huang, chief. Taiwan Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. and planning, at a press conference this week.

Eager to show its support for Taiwan and no doubt disturbed by the rapidly changing balance of power in the region in favor of China, the Biden administration now seeking for the US Congress to approve the sale of a $1.1 billion arms package to Taiwan, which would include 100 AIM-9X Block II Sidewinder tactical air-to-air missiles and 60 AGM-84L Harpoon Block II missiles.

With growing bipartisan support from the United States for a tougher stance against China, the White House is eager to restore its image in Taiwan by deploying a new batch of warships to the region in recent days.

As the US midterm elections approach, China appears to be reversing its military response to Pelosi’s visit for fear of handing more power to warmongering Republicans who aim to take control of both legislative houses in the midterm elections. – November mandate.

China and the United States have thus settled into a kind of shadowboxing over Taiwan that neither side wants to escalate into an all-out conflict, although the potential for miscalculations of the coup for the coup increases.

In retrospect, China’s fiery response to Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was more than just a strategic tantrum. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) led massive, complex and very intimidating exercises almost daily shortly after the American speaker left the self-governing island that Beijing considers a renegade province.

At one pointas many as 22 Chinese warplanes broke through Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), while another 22 crossed the median line that has long served as the de facto territorial demarcation in the Taiwan Strait.

In the largest exercise of its kind, spanning six areas surrounding the island nation, the PLA fired missiles at Taiwan for the first time in history. No less than 10 warships have also been deployed near Taiwan’s territorial waters.

During previous confrontationsincluding the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995–96, the PLA largely kept its warships inside the median line and did not fire missiles over Taiwan. By contrast, this year China reacted with a vengeance, violating previously agreed operational agreements.

The geography of Chinese military operations has also undergone a major and crucial transformation. During the previous crisis, much of the PLA’s maneuvers targeted the northern and southern parts of Taiwan to demonstrate China’s “missile blockade tactics”. according Taipei-based defense expert Chi Le-yi.

This time, however, “the PLA is going further to bring eastern Taiwan and the southwestern Bashi Channel under its cover of missile range…It’s a clear move aimed at showing how they would block the entry of ships and planes from the United States and Japan to Taiwan in case of emergency,” he added.

After decades of rapid military modernization, the PLA has been also able to demonstrate its ability to conduct multi-domain operations with shiny new weapons, including an aircraft carrier, domestically-made stealth fighter jets, and improved long-range missiles.

The message to Taiwan was crystal clear: Beijing is slowly getting closer to obtaining the ability to completely choke the autonomous island in the event of total war.

As a researcher at the National Defense and Security Research Institute, which is affiliated with the Taiwan Ministry of Defense, Noted“I think they [China] showed their intentions, encircling Taiwan and countering foreign intervention.

According to senior Taiwanese defense officials, the PLA could acquire the capability to conduct full-scale war from 2025.

In response, Taiwanese President Tsai vowed that her country would “never be knocked down by the challenges” presented by Beijing’s growing military capabilities. To mitigate the shifting balance of military power in the Taiwan Strait, the Tsai administration has proposed increasing the self-governing island’s defense spending by almost 15% to NT$523.4 billion (17, $3 billion), among the largest military budgets in Asia.

Taiwan has also allocated a special fund worth $2 billion to improve its combat readiness as well as its sea and air deterrence capabilities.

The new defense package proposed by the Biden administration aims to bolster Taiwan’s military modernization efforts. This is largely in line with efforts by the former Trump administration to limit China’s regional ambitions by building defensive capabilities and expanding diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

Although would have been skeptical of Pelosi’s visit, the Pentagon doubled its naval maneuvers in the region, deploying two missile cruisers across the strait during the weekend.

Singapore-based analyst Collin Koh pointed to the unusual nature of the deployment, since “[h]Having two instead of the usual ship to carry out this mission is certainly a “bigger” signal of protest not only against Beijing’s recent military exercises around Taiwan after Pelosi’s visit, but also in response to Beijing’s attempt to overturn the legal status of the waterway and long-standing freedom of navigation rights in the region.

What was even more surprising, however, was China’s relatively muted response despite its heightened concern and strategic sensitivity in recent weeks.

Even the state-backed Global Times, a nationalist tabloid known for its inflammatory rhetoric, uncharacteristically downplayed the US deployments as inconsequential because they “[pose] no real threat to China’s security.

Having flexed its new military capabilities without succeeding in deterring a new wave of diplomatic visits in Taiwan by Western lawmakers in recent weeks, Beijing appears to be recalibrating its stance.

This is probably due to the next 20th Party Congress in mid-Octobera highly sensitive event that should give Chinese President Xi Jinping an unprecedented third term.

But Beijing also has its sights set on the upcoming US midterm elections in November, where Republicans are favored to take full control of the US legislature.

As Carl Schuster, former chief of operations for the Joint Intelligence Center at U.S. Pacific Command, put it:[Xi] does not want a House and Senate that could enact legislation that more strongly supports Taiwan, or limits Chinese investment and influence in the United States.

Chinese Supreme Leader will probably also meet Biden on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in November, the first face-to-face meeting between the two world leaders since the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Having demonstrated his country’s discontent and military might, the Chinese leader is now likely considering a temporary walkout, which would allow the two superpowers to explore a reset of bilateral relations and their positions in Taiwan.

Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on Twitter at @richeydarian