Further missing context, in 2013 China started pumping sand in to make artificial islands to further exert it’s power over nearby waters and ramped up it’s naval harassment.

The PLAN frankly was not in any state to harass Taiwan prior to anytime before 2010 at the earliest, so it’s not surprising it wasn’t used as a coercion tool. Such a friendly peaceful neighbor was in the year leading up to 2016 instead practicing to invade Taiwan’s presidential office amongst other sites.