China drills could turn into full-out attack: officials

The Taiwan official said their own intelligence had detected signs of China’s drills ahead of time and deployed assets, including mobile missile launchers, to strategic spots before Beijing announced the war games about dawn on Monday.

Asked when China could hold its next war games, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said it could be at any time and under any pretext.

“The permanent state of readiness is getting higher and higher — they can switch from nothing to drills to war in no time,” the diplomat said, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

This raises a lot of questions, such as:

• Is this latest incident being purposely downplayed or under reported in order to not alarm the public? Granted, normally the press tries to alarm the public so as to get more clicks and eyeballs. But this seems like a pretty serious situation that suggest an imminence of sorts.
  
• It's been established that China could switch from games to an actual attack at any time. Does this mean that such games are increasingly becoming indistinguishable from an actual attack? Are the lines being blurred?
  
• Could a game become an attack and visa versa?