China is back with another show of force to Taiwan.
Three years ago it fired missiles from ships conducting a military exercise in the Taiwan Strait. Now it systematically is moving missiles, reportedly by the hundreds, into the part of China closest to the territory it regards as a breakaway province. This development seems to have no specific trigger beyond an evidently continuing desire to intimidate Taiwan and keep it from eventually creeping under an American anti-missile umbrella and thus be even less likely to reunify with the mainland. As signals of force, the multiyear coastal deployments are less dramatic but no less objectionable than the earlier firings. In Taiwan, at any rate, the effect may be the same - to advertise to the Taiwanese people the benefits of independence from Beijing and to turn them further against any early consideration of reunification.