…China has deployed fighter jets to a contested island in the South China Sea, the same island where China deployed surface-to-air missiles last week, two US officials tell Fox News.

The dramatic escalation came as Secretary of State John Kerry hosted his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, at the State Department.

Was this deployment, timed as it was to coincide with our ineffectual Secretary of State’s hosting of Wang, a deliberate provocation, aimed at embarrassing him and our country? Or was it merely aimed at demonstrating to the nations around the South China Sea our present impotence?

Just to be sure the PRC’s message was clear, Wang added that

he hoped that “close up” military flights and patrols by US Navy ships over the contested islands would end.

“We don’t hope to see any more close-up military reconnaissance or the dispatch of missile destroyers or strategic bombers to the South China Sea.”

Hmm….