The Provocative Politics of Nancy Pelosi’s Trip to Taiwan
On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan, becoming the first person of her rank to do so in almost thirty years. Her trip was not officially sanctioned by the Biden Administration, but the President did not publicly dissuade her from going. The Chinese government, which views the island as part of the People’s Republic of China, announced a series of military drills in response. The United States has a long-standing relationship with Taiwan, and is its main provider of military equipment, but it maintains an official distance from the island to avoid angering China and provoking armed conflict. These fears have grown over the past decade as Chinese leaders have espoused increasingly nationalist ideology, and harshly cracked down on protests against their rule in Hong Kong...