U.S.-China Tensions Rise as Pelosi Vows “Ironclad” Support for Taiwan During Controversial Trip

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has left Taiwan after several high-profile meetings with Taiwan’s pro-democracy president and other lawmakers. Pelosi’s visit made her the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years and stoked tensions with China, prompting the nation to announce it would carry out new air and naval drills and long-range live-fire exercises in six areas around Taiwan beginning Thursday. The Quincy Institute’s Michael Swaine says President Biden should have done more to prevent the visit and uphold the One China policy, calling the move a “basic violation of the understanding that the United States and China reached at the time of normalization.” Taiwanese American journalist Brian Hioe rebukes Swaine’s claims, saying progressives should focus more on the desires of the Taiwanese than trying to cater to the whims of the two imperial powers of the U.S. and China, adding that China’s retaliatory military escalation does not threaten the Taiwanese. “We cannot act as progressives or leftists seeing things in a bipolar world, seeing no other agency from any other force,” says Hioe.

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