TEc - Fighter-fleet response

A recurrent issue ever present plaguing Sino-US relations.

It is quite naive on the US side to suggest China might be distracted by internal issue/s no matter how grave.
To me it smells more like wishful thinking than any real belief the country's rulers might take their eyes off the ball when Taiwan is the ball.

Interesting to read as though it may be, historical facts are plain to see and extract substance from.
China is unlikely to relinquish on what it has consistently treated as an internal affair left unresolved from the time the communists took over in Beijing.
The US then provided cover for the defeated who fled to Taipei to set up modern-day Taiwan.
America has so far managed to help Taiwan build up a formidable defense force whose capability no other army - not even mainland China's - can begin to underestimate.

Despite growing links between China and America, the end of the cold war, the triumph of the market economy in China and more, Taiwan remains mostly an irritant to the Chinese a rather uneasy yet cosy friend to the Americans.
These days not much is heard from the Taiwanese themselves thanks largely to China's growing economic clout and influence.

I believe a tipping point will arrive sometime in the future triggered by an arms sale episode, or whatever, whereby a change in the current situation will push itself in.

When, how and what shape or form that change will be about is for now a worthless exercise in futurology.