China's reaction has been all the shriller for knowing that any missile defences eventually deployed to protect America's troops and close allies from rogue North Korean missiles could be used to help protect Taiwan from China. With its missile, North Korea was thumbing its nose as much at China as at Japan and America. Yet the success of its engineers owes at least something to past Chinese collusion. North Korea felt it could take such missile liberties in part because China has stoutly opposed all international pressure on North Korea to curb its nuclear and missile activities. The Taiwanese had their reminder of the potential value of missile defences three years ago, when it was China lobbing missiles, these ones falling near the island's shipping lanes in a crude effort to intimidate voters before Taiwan's first democratic presidential election.
China now has snazzier missiles.
Its belligerence drove Taiwan to seek better defences, not, as China would have it, the other way around. Yet these issues give a new tilt to East Asia's uneasy balance of power. If this tilt upsets China, it has mostly itself to blame.