Record surges of Chinese warplanes over the Taiwan Strait. Quasi-civilian Maritime Militia vessels, over a hundred of them, “swarming” in Philippine waters. The Chinese Coast Guard blasting water cannons at their Filipino counterparts. China’s first domestically built aircraft carrier leading a score of warships in wargames of unprecedented scale. All that in just the last six and a half months, Breaking Defense reports.
So as Beijing keeps raising the temperature in the West Pacfic — like the old myth of someone boiling a frog alive, too gradually for the amphibian to notice — how do intelligence analysts determine what’s just one more maritime micro-aggression, and what’s the opening moves of a Pearl Harbor-style first strike?
