China’s live-fire military exercises in the waters near Taiwan, which began Thursday, are a worrisome escalation from Beijing. The People’s Liberation Army has gradually ramped up its warplane incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, airspace around the island over which Beijing claims authority, but China hasn’t performed live-fire drills so close to Taiwanese shores in nearly three decades.
Comparisons to the last such incident, the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995 and 1996, have led this current story to be widely framed as a Washington-Beijing standoff: Will the United States now, as it did then, deploy a large naval contingent to stare down China on Taiwan’s behalf, including sailing an aircraft carrier and other warships through the strait?
It may seem sensible to simply repeat that reaction of 27 years ago, putting on a show of force in hopes of deterring Chinese military aggression against Taiwan and reiterating American dominance in the Indo-Pacific. But the situation surrounding these live-fire exercises is not the same as those nearly three decades ago, and a U.S. military response would be an escalatory mistake.
