Taiwan's HIMARS launch across the Taiwan Strait on June 13 was a doctrinal statement, not a live-fire drill, and Beijing's same-day publication of a 3,000-kilometer carrier kill radius was the counter-filing, addressed to the US Seventh Fleet rather than Taipei. The parallel timing closed the loop. Fourteen PLA aircraft and nine warships circled Taiwan's airspace the same day, the largest combined-arms demonstration logged by the ROC Ministry of National Defense since August 2022. HIMARS, the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, carries a maximum operational range of 300 kilometers in its ATACMS configuration; the strait at its narrowest is 130. Taipei did not fire into Chinese territorial waters. The trajectory went across. The difference is military law, and Taipei's General Staff knows it.

Beijing's response sequencing identifies the real audience. The 3,000-kilometer carrier kill radius, framed in the South China Morning Post as PLAN strategic planning doctrine, brackets the USS Ronald Reagan's patrol corridor in the Philippine Sea and Guam's Forward Operating Location -- a target set Taiwan's HIMARS cannot reach. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian (post held since February 2024) gave the standard formulation at the afternoon press conference; the SCMP piece ran without byline correction or retraction before close of business Hong Kong time. The Philippine component arrived in the same window: Beijing's ban on Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and his family, announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs effective immediately, removed the official who has run Manila's side of the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty joint consultations since his appointment in August 2022.