In an unexpectedly brazen rattling of sabers, just days after China deployed troops to its first foreign base in Djibouti, a move which the Global Times clarified is "about protecting its own security, not about seeking to control the world, Beijing made a less than subtle reversal, when it told Japan on Friday to "get used to it" after it flew six warplanes over the Miyako Strait between two southern Japanese islands in a military exercise. 

It all started late on Thursday night, when Japan's defense ministry issued a token statement describing the flyover by the formation of Xian H-6 bombers, also known as China's B-52, earlier that day as "unusual", while noting that there had been no violation of Japanese airspace.

The flyover was hardly surprising: the Chinese navy and air force have been carrying out a series of exercises in the Western Pacific in recent month, both as they hone their ability to operate far from their home shores, as well as a trial balloon to gauge the reactions of their increasingly more nervous neighbors.