The Americans and their allies are playing a game of one-upmanship in the Taiwan Straits in defiance of Beijing’s relentless claims to the independent island democracy of Taiwan.

As if to mock Communist China’s show of force last week, during which 125 Chinese planes and 17 navy vessels, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning, surrounded Taiwan, one American and one Canadian warship have traversed the straits to aggrieved but futile outcries from the Chinese.

The transit of the guided-missile destroyer United States Ship Higgins and the Canadian navy frigate Vancouver proved, yet again, the commitment of both countries “to upholding freedom of navigation for all nations as a principle,” the American Seventh Fleet said from its headquarters at the port of Yokosuka, Japan.

The Chinese are responding with rhetoric that suggests they won’t do a thing to block such missions but still feel obligated to express their perpetual  annoyance.

China’s English-language propaganda paper, Global Times, quoted a spokesman denouncing “any act of provocation under the pretext of freedom of navigation.” The Taiwan question “is not about freedom of navigation but about China’s sovereignty and territorial rights” — its historic, ritualistic claim that Taiwan, democratically ruled, rightfully belongs to the Communist regime at Beijing.

China’s seeming show of strength has actually devolved into a display of lack of real resolve, under which the Chinese simply are not going to invade Taiwan unless the government of Taiwan flatly declares its “independence” from the mainland.

Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching-te, upset Beijing to no end with his “double ten” speech on Taiwan’s National Day, October 10, i.e., 10/10, in which he danced perilously close to declaring Taiwan, the proud “Republic of China,” as a nation independent of the “People’s Republic of China” — that is, mainland Communist China.

The ROC and the PRC “are not subordinate to each other,” Mr. Lai orated. “The People’s Republic of China has no right to represent Taiwan.” The ROC “has shown steadfast resolve,” he said, and “all along, the people of Taiwan have shown unwavering tenacity.”

It was that speech that persuaded Beijing to show Taiwan who was boss, but the transitory nature of the display of the Chinese navy and air force was less than convincing.

Taiwan’s National Security Bureau declared that Beijing’s seeming show of force had “triggered international countermeasures” while failing to change the “strategic rivalry” between China and America, the latter staunchly committed to Taiwan’s defense.

Washington has “expressed support for maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait,” the Taipei Times said, while “China “maintains its position on Taiwan.”

Taiwan had the unanimous support of America’s main NATO allies as well as Japan. 

The Taipei Times reported that the defense chiefs of the G7 nations — including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Britain, as well as America — in the first G7 defense ministerial meeting, held at Naples, declared “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is indispensable to international security and prosperity,.” They were “concerned about provocative actions,” the paper said, notably Chinese “drills around Taiwan.”

It was not clear, however, whether the Chinese were interested in anything other than a symbolic display of resolve. While Chinese warships were cruising around Taiwan, China’s leader, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, for two days last week was traipsing around Fujian Province, 90 miles across the Taiwan Straits. His message and tone were non-militaristic.

“Beijing understands that it cannot rely solely on hard tactics without also employing soft ones,” the director of Tamkang University’s Center for Cross-Strait Relations, Chang Wu-ueh, said. “If Beijing only adopts a hard approach and focuses solely on opposing Taiwan independence, it will harm efforts to promote reunification.”

Instead, Mr. Xi called for “greater strides in exploring new paths for cross-strait integrated development,” and “cross-strait cultural exchanges” — a message crafted to appeal to Taiwan citizens fed up with windy statements from Beijing as well as their own leaders.