More information is coming out from Taiwan itself regarding Kelly Craft's aborted trip to Taiwan in the last days of the Trump administration.
In recent days our military intelligence and cross strait diplomatic corp have acquired many pieces of information regarding this. After analysis the situation overall went thusly: from 7th of January to 10th of January China strongly protested via diplomatic channels (re Kelly Craft's trip) to no avail. After deliberation Beijing decided to respond with military force. On 11th of January PLA notified US DoD via military channels that China cannot tolerate Kelly Craft's action as they will damage the sovereignty of China. Once her plane nears Taiwan PLA aircraft will enter Taiwan airspace and declare sovereignty. If Taiwan aircraft were to interfere with this then they may be fired upon.
At the time The Pentagon was busy with the handover and did not expect such a strong response from the PLA. They attempted to contact PLA high command but was refused. Pentagon contacted United States Indo-Pacific Command and was told that the only way to ensure safety of Kelly Craft's plane was to mobilize F-15C from 18th Wing from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa for escort. But such as action risk military confrontation between China and US.
Alternatively to avoid direct military confrontation between US and China ROCAF aircraft might be used instead for escort, but such a plan could also be very troublesome as once large number of PLAAF aircraft crosses the midline there is risk of aerial combat with ROCAF aircraft over northern Taiwan. Should that happen Kelly Craft's aircraft would be in danger and will be forced to turn and land in US airforce base in Japan. Although this means US forces will not be involved in any fighting it will still trigger war between Taiwawn and China, and thus cause a political disaster for the US.
Thus DoD was forced to send both the PLA warning as well as their estimate regarding US forces to the state department and recommend Kelly Craft's trip to Taiwan be cancelled. Pompeo was very upset but after considering the consequences was forced to hit the brakes. To avoid giving the impression that the cancellation of the trip was due to pressure from China he instead used the handover as excuse and not only cancelled the Taiwan trip, but also his own trip to Europe as well as all other trips by State Department staff. Thus in the end Kelly Craft did not go to Taiwan and PLA did not implement the threat. Because of this Taiwan's politic establishment never realised they were part of this political show of force between Beijing and Washington and how close war brushed by them.
