The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) use their bi-annual Zhuhai Airshow to attack Taiwan on two levels.

The first level became apparent to this observer after attending the first two airshows in 1996 and 1998: Why would the CCP allow Zhuhai leaders to build a second large international airport a mere 26 kilometers from the far busier Macau International Airport, with Zhuhai only cycling about ten flights a day?

Zhuhai city fathers were not guilty of some corrupt “boondoggle,” they had clearly convinced the PLA to bless their city with a massive reserve airport to support future bomber and airborne assault missions as part of an eventual invasion of Taiwan.

Though the 1996 Zhuhai Airshow first day opening program was led largely by Zhuhai politicians and Chinese aerospace industry leaders, subsequent shows demonstrated increasingly that the PLA had embraced the exhibition and was in charge.

By the 2006 show “transparency” was quickly fading; it was very rare for foreign media to get Chinese corporate or government officials to speak substantively about military aircraft, weapons or space programs.

But that did not matter to the PLA, which had settled into using the Zhuhai Airshow for its second level…