The Chinese warplanes, deployed in record numbers, crossed an informal boundary between China and Taiwan. Chinese Coast Guard boats joined naval ships in encircling Taiwan. Fighter jets took off from an aircraft carrier parked off the island’s east coast.

飞越中国与台湾之间非正式边界线的中国战机数量创下纪录。中国海警船只加入到环绕台湾的海军舰艇之列。战斗机从停泊在台湾岛东海岸不远的一艘航空母舰上起飞。

The large-scale military drills China held this week were aimed at demonstrating its potential to choke Taiwan’s access to food and fuel and block the skies and waters from which the United States and its allies would presumably approach in coming to the island’s defense.

中国本周举行了大规模环台军演，旨在展示它有能力阻断台湾的食品和燃料供应，封锁协防台湾的美国及其盟友可能会使用的海空通道。

The exercises showed how China was improving its coordination of complex operations involving a range of military, coast guard and rocket forces. They also raise the risk of a confrontation or accident that could draw in the United States and its Asian allies.

演习表明，中国正在如何改进涉及不同军种、海警部门和火箭部队的复杂行动的协调能力。演习还增加了发生冲突，或有可能将美国及其亚洲盟友卷进来的事故的风险。

China’s tightening military squeeze on Taiwan is imposing a new normal — creating daily pressure that exhausts the island’s defense forces and increases the incentive for Taiwan to capitulate without a fight.

中国对台湾的军事钳制正在形成一种新常态，制造让其每天都能感受到的压力，消磨它的国防力量，增加台湾在不打仗的情况下投降的动机。

It was the second time in less than five months that China has conducted similar exercises in response to what it regarded as pro-separatist remarks by the island’s president, Lai Ching-te. By comparison, China held two such drills during the eight years Mr. Lai’s predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, was in office.

这是中国在不到五个月的时间里第二次举行类似的演习，是对它眼中台湾总统赖清德支持分裂言论的回应。相比之下，在赖清德的前任蔡英文执政的八年里，中国总共举行了两次这类演习。

“Beijing is normalizing the use of these large scale military and coast guard activities under the Lai administration,” said Brian Hart, a fellow with the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They have made it clear that if they see things that they perceive as provocative from Taiwan that they will respond this way.”

“赖清德上台后，北京正在将这些大规模的军事和海警活动正常化，”国际战略研究中心中国实力项目研究员贺博然(Brian Hart)说。“中国政府已明确表示，如果他们看到台湾所谓的挑衅行为，将会这样做出回应。”

台湾总统赖清德上周在双十节发表的讲话被中国认为传递了台独信息。

Some analysts saw China’s drills as aimed in part as a response to military exercises by the United States and its allies in the region. On Wednesday, the United States and the Philippines began their annual war games. Troops from Japan, South Korea, Australia, Britain and France are also participating. U.S. exercises with Japan are planned for later this month.

一些分析人士认为，中国的军演部分是针对美国及其盟友在该地区举行的军事演习。周三，美国和菲律宾开始了两国的年度军演。来自日本、韩国、澳大利亚、英国和法国的军队也将参加演习。美国与日本的联合军演计划于本月晚些时候举行。

China kept up the drumbeat of pressure on Taipei on Wednesday with a tour by President Xi Jinping of Dongshan County, a coastal community in eastern Fujian Province that is close to Taiwan. On the same day, Chen Binhua, a spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, reiterated that Beijing would not renounce the use of force to take Taiwan, if necessary.

中国在周三继续对台北施压，国家主席习近平视察了位于福建省东部沿海地区的东山县，这里距离台湾最近。同一天，中国国台办发言人陈斌华重申，中国永远不会承诺放弃对台湾使用武力。

Should they become more frequent, China’s large-scale drills increase the risks in what was already one of the most contested areas in the world. An accident between Chinese and Taiwanese forces could plunge the two sides into a political crisis and an “escalation spiral” in which neither Beijing nor Taipei can pull out of, risking war, Mr. Hart said.

如果中国的大规模军演变得更加频繁的话，这个已是世界上争议最激烈地区的风险将进一步加大。贺博然表示，一旦两岸发生军事意外，双方可能会陷入一场政治危机以及北京和台北都无法摆脱的“升级螺旋”，从而引发战争。

In any such conflict between China and Taiwan, the United States might come to Taiwan’s defense. That American support for Taipei remains one of the biggest drivers of tension with China. Beijing accuses Washington of promoting Taiwanese independence, and Washington accuses Beijing of sowing instability with provocative military drills.

如果发生这类冲突的话，美国可能会出面保卫台湾。美国对台湾的支持一直是中美关系紧张的最大动因之一。北京指责华盛顿推动台湾独立，华盛顿则指责北京用挑衅性的军事演习制造不稳定。

The pressure campaign includes challenging Taiwan’s limits in the skies and the waters. Among the record 153 planes China flew toward the island, 111 crossed the so-called median line in the Taiwan Strait. Until several years ago, it was an informal boundary that they had rarely crossed. The coast guard also sent four boats into restricted waters near Taiwan’s Matsu Islands, close to mainland China.

中国的施压行动包括挑战台湾在空中和海上的界限。中国出动了创纪录的153架次军机飞向台湾，其中111架次越过了所谓的台湾海峡中线。中国几年前很少越过这条非正式边界线。中国海警还派出四艘船只进入台湾马祖岛附近的禁区，该岛靠近中国大陆。

China is still trying to teach its army, navy, air force and other military branches to coordinate better. That is a skill militaries like that of the United States have honed over decades of continuous war, whereas the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has not fought a battle since its brief conflict with Vietnam 45 years ago.

中国仍在努力训练其陆军、海军、空军和其他军种更好地协调作战。美国等国的军队已在几十年未曾停止的战争中磨练出这种技能，而中国人民解放军自从45年前与越南发生了一场短暂冲突以来，没有打过一场仗。

“China continues to press up against the contiguous zone so these activities are coming closer and closer to Taiwan shores,” said David Sacks, a fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “We see them flying further from China’s coast. We see them operating on the east side of Taiwan as well, so you know we see the sophistication increasing.”

“中国不断向毗连区域逼近，这些活动正在越来越接近台湾海岸，”美国外交关系委员会的亚洲问题研究员戴维·萨克斯说。“我们看到他们飞向离中国海岸越来越远的地方。我们也看到他们在台湾岛以东地区有军事行动，因此可以说，我们看到的熟练程度在日益增长。”

China is also not nearly as experienced as the United States wielding aircraft carriers. The inclusion of the Liaoning, China’s first carrier, allowed the ship to practice projecting its strength toward the Pacific Ocean where it is presumed U.S. and other forces, potentially from bases in Japan and Guam, would come from should the two sides go to war. China released video of fighter jets launching from its decks.

中国在使用航空母舰上的经验也远不如美国。中国的第一艘航母辽宁舰参加了这次演习，让该舰练习向太平洋投射力量。如果中国与台湾开战的话，人们认为美国和其他国家的部队可能会从日本和关岛的基地进入太平洋。中国发布了战斗机从辽宁舰甲板上起飞的视频。

中国军方发布的一段视频的截图显示，一架战斗机在周一的环台军演中从辽宁舰的甲板上起飞。

“It is equivalent to having an airport on the Pacific side,” said Lin Ying-yu, an assistant professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan who specializes in the People’s Liberation Army, of the Liaoning. “If the People’s Liberation Army today has the ability to attack from the east side, Taiwan’s strategy of using the east as a reserve base will need to be adjusted.”

“它相当于一个建在太平洋那边的机场，”台湾淡江大学专门研究解放军的助理教授林颖佑谈到辽宁舰时说。“如果解放军今天有可以从东部这一边来攻击的能力，台湾的用东部作战力保存基地的战略就必须要调整。”

Still, the most significant aspect of this week’s drills may be the inclusion of 18 coast guard vessels, the most in any such exercise. That indicated that China would lean heavily on maritime law enforcement to impose a quarantine around Taiwan, analysts said, leaving the military to focus on fighting.

尽管如此，中国本周军演最重要的方面也许是包括了18艘海警船，是参加演习最多的一次。分析人士称，这表明中国从周边隔离台湾的努力将在很大程度上依赖海上执法部门，让军队把精力集中在打仗上。

A bigger role for the coast guard reinforces Beijing’s assertion that Taiwanese waters are actually Chinese, making any blockade or quarantine a domestic issue. And during a war, it is generally assumed an opposing navy would avoid firing on coast guard ships because it could play into a Chinese narrative that it is other militaries escalating tensions.

海警发挥更大作用强化了北京关于台湾水域实际上是中国内海的说法，让封锁或隔离台湾成为一个国内事务。人们通常认为，在战争中，敌方的海军会避免向中国海警船只开火，因为那样做可能符合中国的叙事，即加剧紧张局势的是其他军队。

台湾海巡署发布的一段视频的截图显示，海巡署队员在中国海警船周一从台湾马祖岛附近海域经过时对其进行观察。

Beijing’s continued bid to intimidate Taiwan with its military has potential consequences for its other interests. The specter of Chinese forces surrounding Taiwan could scare off foreign investors at a time when China is trying woo them back to help stabilize its economy, which has been badly weakened by a property crisis.

中国政府继续竭力用军队恐吓台湾的做法可能会影响它的其他利益。中国军队环绕台湾带来的恐慌可能会吓跑外国投资者，而此时中国正试图将外国投资者吸引回来，帮助稳定受房地产危机严重拖累的经济。

The drills also risk making China a greater focus of the American presidential campaigns — something analysts said Beijing has been trying to avoid so that the next administration might not feel as much pressure to confront China.

这些军演也可能让中国成为美国总统竞选的焦点——分析人士称，北京一直在努力避免这种情况，以免下一届美国政府面临巨大的压力必须要对抗中国。

“While China is thought to be cautious during this period, the drills send the message that Taiwan remains so sensitive, so important and crucial for the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Bonnie Glaser, the director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a Washington policy research group.

“尽管中国被认为会在此期间保持谨慎，但军演传递的信息是：台湾问题仍非常敏感、非常重要，并继续对中共的合法性至关重要，”华盛顿的政策研究机构德国马歇尔基金会印度太平洋项目主任葛来仪(Bonnie Glaser)说。

Indeed, a crucial audience for China’s drills is the one at home. In propaganda messages, the Chinese Coast Guard sought to cast its exercises as a paternalistic gesture of love toward its Taiwanese compatriots, captured in a graphic depicting Taiwan surrounded by a line of red arrows in the shape of a heart.

其实，中国军演的一个关键受众是国内民众。中国海警局在宣传中试图传递的信息是，演习是对台湾同胞们家长式的爱，这体现在它发布的一张海报上：包围台湾的红色箭头线构成了一个心形。

The gesture fell flat in Taiwan, where on social media and political talk shows, commentators poked fun at the illustration, which was accompanied by the message: “The patrol is in the shape of loving you.”

这种示爱方式在台湾彻底失败了。社交媒体上和政评节目中的评论员们嘲弄了那张配有“巡航都是爱你的形状”文字的图。

平潭岛的海滩，这是中国大陆距离台湾本岛最近的地方。

Many in Taiwan responded with a collective “ick.” Some compared the illustration to the mind-set of an abusive partner. Others said the graphic was “too disgusting” and called it “sexual harassment.”

许多台湾人对其总体上的反应是“恶心”。一些人将该图比作“恐怖情人”的心态。也有人说该图“太恶”，将其称为“性骚”。