Last week, the US and Canada each sent a warship through the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan has appealed to the US for faster delivery of fighter aircraft. It's been a tense month in the Strait, kicked off by China's celebration of its national day on October 1 through flying a record number of aircraft through Taiwan's air defense identification zone. Could war really happen? Could China really successfully take Taiwan?

Cindy Yu speaks to Oriana Skylar Mastro, fellow at Stanford and the American Enterprise Institute, whose detailed piece for Foreign Affairs took a close look at China's military options: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-06-03/china-taiwan-war-temptation.

To find out just why China cares about Taiwan so much, tune into a previous episode of Chinese Whispers where Cindy Yu speaks to Professor Rana Mitter and analyst Jessica Drun: https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/why-does-china-care-about-taiwan-.