My personal view is that if there is no point of interception if they can’t prevent Pelosi’s plane from landing. If her plane lands despite military action from the PRC side it would be a major propaganda boon.
An interception (but no shooting) needs to happen whether it is successful or not. Ideally, PLA jets should accompany/escort Pelosi into Taiwan proper, no more weakly poking around the median line nonsense.
For domestic consumption reasons, Xi needs to be seen as doing something about this highly provocative visit (given the timing, 20th congress, PLA anniversary), something none of his predecessors had done before. Otherwise it would make him look weak and arguably unfit to continue ruling especially after he publicly told Biden not to play with fire in his call.
Even if Pelosi's jet managed to land under PLA escorts, Chinese public would probably understand and likely forgive Xi as PLA jets breaching of Taiwanese airspace over the island can be classified as a victory of sorts. This would allow Xi to save face and give him political cover since he could claim that PLA properly asserted PRC's sovereignty over Taiwan airspace proper. It would set a precedent and deter other foreign politicians making highly provocative visits because US airforce is unlikely to provide armed escorts to politicians from other countries. In an awkward way, all parties could claim victory.
Anyway, all of this assume that US, PRC and Taiwan (in the interest of avoiding war) decide to keep their heads cool and trigger happy mavericks away from the air operation.
