China Coast Guard ships have run "routine voyages" in Japan's EEZ south of Yonaguni since June. Calling it routine is how the precedent gets set.

Why use a warship when a fishing boat will do? Civilian hulls buy deniability, and each cable cut is small enough to absorb. That a feature not a bug. We spill the tea.

“China prefers ‘invisible hybrid warfare’ (隐形混合战) over kinetic warfare.  Covert irregular warfare enables China the means to quietly overwhelm its targets not only physically but economically and politically as well – all without firing a shot.  The use of civilian fishing vessels not only provide plausible deniability but legitimizes China’s claims and salami-slicing tactics as lawful and just.”

The PLA landed in three places at once during its annual Amphibious Warfare Capstone Exercises, roughly 360 km apart — about Taipei to Kaohsiung — against obstacles matching Taiwan's coast. A rehearsal.

Years of drills near Taiwan simulated blockade and landing. The recent round reads differently — less signaling, more rehearsals, more taking and holding.

China's new landing barges relieve the constraint every Taiwan invasion assessment rests on: putting heavy vehicles ashore without first taking a port.