One element of that speculation gained traction when I read that the non-typhoon season in the area is May to July and October.
This article, discussing a typhoon this month, led me to look at this issue:
The remnants of Typhoon Fengshen bore down on Taiwan and southeast China on Wednesday, after leaving a trail of destruction in the Philippines, where hopes faded of finding more survivors inside a capsized ferry.
During what I thought was the non-typhoon season? Oops. I don't watch the Weather Channel much and it shows.
So I looked at last year's weather pattern, and find that the typhoon season is more like May to November.
The storms can strike any time, but these months are most common. May was sparse and June had no storms last year. August through November were the most active months last year.
This is not to say that China could only strike from December to April. China just needs a window in the Taiwan Strait area to strike and gain a foothold. Perhaps only a week of local good weather would be enough to get ashore in sufficient strength. Heck, bad weather after China gets enough troops ashore might harm our air and naval power trying to intervene.
Nonetheless, the windows I thought China had to invade are way off. I assumed the source I used was good enough to trust their statement. I recall doing a quick Intenet search back then to check but came up empty. But perhaps my memory is faulty, since my quick search today turned up this information easily. Three years is a long time on the Web, I know, but still. I apologize for that error standing for so long.
While this does not change the basic conclusion that China is gaining the ability to invade and will do so at some point, it does weaken (but not wreck--only time can do that) the pre-Olympics timeframe argument.
