28 PLA aircraft and eight warships circled Taiwan on Saturday. It was the largest single-day envelope recorded this calendar quarter. Leaked intelligence documents surfaced the same weekend. They were attributed to Russian and Chinese defense planners. The documents described coordinated operational notes on a Taiwan contingency. Beijing has not commented. Moscow denied authenticity within hours. That denial cadence is consistent with protocol when the underlying documents are real.

US and Japanese forces ran joint drills in the South China Sea on Monday. Beijing simultaneously confirmed the first deployment of its Type 075 assault ship to the same theater. That vessel carries landing craft and attack helicopters configured for amphibious insertion. The pairing of an operational amphibious platform with a record air-and-sea envelope around Taiwan is not coincidence. Washington's drill notice preceded Beijing's deployment announcement by 48 hours. The two sides are now calibrating on each other's timelines, not their own.