China's spy balloon caught the nation's attention, but there's something far more serious concerning Pentagon officials this week...
Evidence that China is prepared to send weapons to Russia.
Such assistance could provide a badly needed lifeline for beleaguered Russian forces.
But it would also send an unmistakable message to the rest of the world...
China is ready for war.
In a way, that seems totally natural.
After all, we knew this day would come.
China has been building up its military for decades, and in the process, it's grown more assertive (aggressive, even) in its diplomacy.
However, it's also somewhat jarring, because the modern world has never seen China as a military power.
Remember, this is a country whose own historical doctrine laments a "century of humiliation" - a 100-year period from the mid-19th century to the communist revolution in which it was completely and totally victimized by today's Western powers.
That includes the Opium Wars carried out by Great Britain and several ruthless invasions by imperial Japan in the 1930s and '40s.
So this is new. China has never before been considered a modern military power.
Yet inserting itself so directly into this conflict - which has become a symbolic (and really, a proxy) war pitting Western democracy against a tyrannical aggressor - would establish that it is just that...
A global military power with its own capacity to intervene and influence international outcomes.
Up to this point, China has been content to act diplomatically.
Its leader, Xi Jinping, and his loyal officials have made explicit declarations of support for the Russian invasion while simultaneously blaming the United States and the West for its escalation.
As soon as the war broke out, the two powers touted a friendship "with no limits."