U.S., China, Taiwan: Why the tense status quo may stick – for now

As the world watched the U.S. presidential election unfold last week, the risks of a distracted Washington were felt perhaps most acutely in a hot spot halfway around the globe: Taiwan.

Taiwan placed its military on high alert during the elections, Taiwan’s Defense Minister Yen Teh-fa told lawmakers in Taipei last Wednesday, saying the island faces a threat from escalating incursions by Chinese warplanes and naval ships into the defensive zone around the island, just 80 miles off mainland China’s coast. The People’s Liberation Army has conducted more than 2,700 air and sea incursions so far this year, Mr. Yen said. PLA aircraft crossed the “median line” – an unofficial line that both sides have traditionally observed in the airspace between Taiwan and mainland China – nearly 50 times, he said, the most since 1990.

Taiwan’s defense deterrent relies in part