Here is one of my favorite, perhaps the favorite Chinese poster from whom I learned a great deal, talking about his analysis of the Taiwan situation
Basically, he illustrated two models of operation that Chinese used to change the status quo. The Diaoyu island model and the South China Sea model.
In both models, The others initiated the change in the status quo. In the case of the Diaoyu island model, the Chinese response after the Japanese government bought the island from private hands was to mobilize public opinion, then over the years escalated until a new status quo was reached where the Chinese have de facto control over the Diaoyu island with their regular patrols and the Japanese were the ones backed off. In the South China Sea model, after the court at the Hague ruled that all the SCS islands do not belong to China, and the U.S. sent in our two carriers under commander Harry Harris, the Chinese escalated with a full military confrontation and the U.S. backed down.
In the current case with Taiwan, the Chinese were combining these two models. They make a lot of threats so if Nancy backs down, they would have succeeded using the SCS model. If Nancy was determined to go, they would switch over to the Diaoyu island model where the Chinese would escalate this, over many years until the Taiwanese military space is completely suppressed.
What the Chinese government did not count on were two things, first, the public, as do I, have changed our expectation of the Chinese government and assume that this would be a sort of SCS model where there would be a confrontation. Secondly, the response from the U.S. has been extremely weak. Many in the establishment were against the trip by Nancy. This further led the Chinese public to believe the Chinese government should go with the SCS model. The Chinese government did not think through the interaction of these factors, resulting in a very big lost of face through the event.
