Taiwan and China are planning to boost their cross-strait weekly flights by a third to 500 to meet ever growing demand, the island's authorities said Friday.
So more will arrive this year. More than 31,000 each week. I wonder a couple things. One, how many tourists have not returned to China after arriving? With so many coming and going, surely the statistics don't match exactly. Some may die while there (stuff happens). Others may go home and will be missed in the counting. But some will stay on purpose. Some of those may be defections. But some will stay on purpose for Chinese state matters. Over time, even just one or two per week would add up. Just what are the statistics?
Second, what level of mismatch would trigger a strong reaction by Taiwan? Do the Taiwanese even have any means to With 31,000 arriving each week, with people staying for varying amounts of time, how long would it take for the Taiwanese to notice that some people haven't returned to China? So if even a tenth of a percent of those who arrived one week did not go home, that would be over 300 people remaining and unaccounted for in just one week.
In any other subject that might be considered just a rounding error. In this case, it could be fatal. What could 300 special forces guys do on Taiwan in pre-H Hour missions? Don't tell me the Chinese haven't thought of this.