Washington will not be able to make a jar big enough for the turtle to escape

At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on the weekend, Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun said that the People's Liberation Army is well-prepared to defeat the Taiwan island's secessionists and their patrons. "It will be as easy as catching a turtle in a jar, nothing to sweat about."

Yet that confident assertion seems to have fallen on deaf ears when it comes to its intended audience, who seem to think they can make the jar so deep that catching the turtle would be more by luck than design.

Less than five days after Dong reiterated Beijing's hard-line position on the Taiwan question in a face-to-face meeting with his US counterpart on the sidelines of the security forum, the Pentagon announced two new arms deals with the island worth a total of $300 million.