China test drives a Taiwan blockade

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China this week practiced a military blockade of Taiwan that is an all too real future possibility. Beijing isn’t hiding the drill’s purpose. The Ministry of National Defense said the exercise on Monday focused on “sea-air combat-readiness patrol, blockade on key ports and areas, assault on maritime and ground targets, as well as joint seizure of comprehensive superiority." Taiwan’s defense ministry tracked some 153 aircraft around the island that China claims as its sovereign territory but is run by a democratic government.

Nearly three-fourths of the planes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered Taiwan’s airspace. That sets a new record, according to the American Enterprise Institute’s Dan Blumenthal. The drill included troops from China’s army, navy, rocket force—and for the first time its Coast Guard.

A Coast Guard spokesman told state-run media this was “a practical action to lawfully enforce control over Taiwan island in accordance with the one-China principle." The drill tested a quarantine that would isolate Taiwan and impede the free flow of goods for an economy dependent on trade for export income and energy imports. Chinese officials described the encirclement drill as a “firm and mighty punishment" after Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said it is “absolutely impossible" for China to be the “motherland" of Taiwan, given that the Chinese Communist Party is the younger regime. On Taiwan’s National Day on Oct.