Ankur Desai

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There's also fresh unrest in the central city of Isfahan, where students from the University of Technology have taken to the streets.

Ostensibly, these are protests about food price increases of up to 70% year on year and soaring inflation.

Domestic flights from Taiwan's main island to these offshore islands have been cancelled.

Around 6,000 passengers were inconvenienced because of that.

The Taiwanese government has said that this is potentially illegal because of all those disruptions.

That said, people know it's only going on for a couple of days and they'll get on with their lives.

However, there will be some in Taiwan who would be worried that

It's ramping up.

You know, you can't just ignore that these exercises are taking place.

They are, after all, a dress rehearsal for a blockade of Taiwan, a potential invasion in the future of Taiwan.

So, yeah, there would be some people who are worried that they're taking place and the government in Taipei has condemned them.

But for the ordinary people in the street, yeah, they're just getting on with their lives.

Yes, I think most observers would say that the PLA could take China.

Taiwan if it wanted to, unless the US got involved with Japan and others, but just so they didn't.

Militarily, they could.

The problem is what the Taiwanese government is factoring in is the cost of doing that.

So it's no cakewalk.

You've got to get across the Taiwan Strait with landing craft, and they're practising that as we speak.

But, you know, death, destruction all round.