Commentary Where the recent escalation of tensions will end must be a question being asked frequently in the Chinese leadership compound at Zhongnanhai in Beijing. Though unacknowledged by Beijing, China’s increasingly strident verbal and military actions in support of its desire to annex Taiwan, by force if necessary, have resulted in closer Taiwan-Japan relations and of both with the United States that are worrisome to the Chinese leadership. At the end of August and, significantly, at Japan’s suggestion, representatives of its perennial ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), met with their counterparts in Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in a first-ever security dialogue—the kind of 2+2 dialogue usually reserved for heads of state and their defense ministers. Except that in theory Japan does not regard Taiwan as a country and China takes offense at the slightest suggestion that it is, with Japan usually careful to emphasize that its …