On Tuesday, China's newest aircraft carrier — the Fujian — transited the Taiwan Strait.

That sentence has appeared in news feeds before. It will appear again. And each time it does, the instinct is to file it under provocation, under pressure, under the weekly drumbeat of Chinese military activity around Taiwan. That instinct is not wrong. But this week, it may be incomplete.

Because the Fujian didn't stop at the Strait. The Strait is not the destination. The Strait is the corridor.