Data + Context + Analysis = Intel
I don't see any advantage for China in the reported sequence of events.
As it stands, directing an attack from their own military base is only going to provoke a messy diplomatic incident and, bearing mind idiot Trump's current hard-on for going after China, seems to serve no overt of covert purpose.
If they want to fuck with yank military air traffic they'd do better to distribute a couple of crates of high-powered laser pointers to the local disaffected yoot and get them to do the dirty work for them with no easy attribution.
If the Chinese really did launch the attack from their base then their only option, when discovered, would be to claim it was an "accident" during "routine calibration" of a new system. And there's still time for them to put forth such an explanation so I wouldn't automatically rule it out.
It also strikes me that attribution must be very difficult involving a laser-source fired over several kilometres. It won't be visible over much of its travel and the affected pilots will certainly be in no position to identify the source, especially at that distance during a night-landing procedure when they'll primarily be relying on instruments instead of direct visual observation (not that that will save them from being blinded by the dispersed beam of a powerful pointer flooding through the cockpit windows).
I just don't see any benefit for the Chinese to do this directly when they could achieve the same, if not better, results by letting someone else work the tools for them. And the attribution is definitely suspect. As others have pointed out, this smacks heavily of the Cuban "sonic attacks" that are much better explained by poor sanitation but that doesn't have the same Man From Uncle panache that grabs the attention of a fearful-by-design American public.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
