Commentary
While much of America was focused on the drama and theatrics of the election of a new Speaker of the House and a domestic American airline system disrupted by winter weather, there was an unprecedented surge of naval and air challenges by China toward Japan and Taiwan.
One of the two existing Chinese carriers, the Liaoning, made a passage through the Ryukyu/Nansei island chain south of the major Japanese Island of Kyushu on Dec. 16.  The second operational Chinese carrier, the Shandong, may have been at sea also, and showed up later in January in the South China Seas somewhat simultaneously with the American Nimitz Strike Group as the American and Chinese carriers conducted demonstrative activities of their capabilities—which in some descriptions was a confrontation….