IAN BREMMER: Pelosi’s trip exposes Taiwan dilemmas
Fallout from the US speaker’s provocative visit has only just begun
House speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful member of the US Congress, has now returned from a trip to Asia, which included a stopover in Taiwan. The fallout from that visit has only just begun.
When media reports first appeared that she wanted to go, China’s government began issuing warnings of grave consequences. The US, Chinese officials insisted, was playing with fire. What’s more, Joe Biden, the embattled US president and leader of Pelosi’s Democratic Party, made clear through surrogates and leaks to the media that he thought a stop in Taiwan was an unnecessarily provocative and poorly timed idea. His administration is trying to cool rising tensions with China, and Biden knew Pelosi’s trip would do the opposite. ..
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