China has reacted to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the US last week with predictable fury and the probing of its waters and airspace by dozens of aircraft and ships, including an aircraft carrier.

It was a notch down from firing ballistic missiles over the heads of the Taiwanese, as China did after then-US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi went to the island last August. But they are still a dress rehearsal for blockading or even invading this 24 million people democracy, with all the chaos to the global economy that would bring.