The Washington Post's Josh Rogin explained in a video that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's upcoming trip to Taiwan, which has been construed as an excursion to cap off her "legacy" of diplomatic prowess, could spark tensions with China.
Speaking to colleagues on "Post Live," Rogin said, "Diplomatic sources confirm, she is set to go" to Taiwan.
"And it will be on the early side of her trip within the next few days. She's also going to Tokyo and Seoul [South Korea].
"And the Biden administration and the military are making preparations to support that trip. And their weeks-long effort — several weeks long effort — to convince her not to go has failed. And the Chinese government's bluster and threatening has also failed to deter her.
"Now, we don't know what they're going to do," Rogin added, regarding China's response. "They have a range of options to respond; some of them could be provocative toward the United States; some of them could be provocative toward Taiwan; some of them could come after she leaves. So there's a lot of unknowns.
"I'm not saying there aren't risks. I'm not saying that the Biden administration doesn't have to consider the geopolitical implications and this and that ... But at the end of the day, if Nancy Pelosi wants to go to Taiwan, Nancy Pelosi's gonna go to Taiwan. For her, it's a capstone on a decades-long career in U.S.-China relations. She knows she's not going to be speaker next year, probably right, and she might not even be in Congress next year, so she sees this as her last chance; she sees this as a legacy item."
Rogin's detailing of Pelosi's trip was followed on Friday by a report from the Chinese Communist Party-controlled Global Times detailing that China is "preparing for war."
"Preparing for war!" a post read on the Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo.
The post, published on Friday by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) 80th Group Army, received 300,000 thumbs-up in 12 hours while amassing 19,000 comments.
According to the New York Post, also on Friday, a Chinese government propagandist threatened that Beijing could shoot down Pelosi's plane if it were flanked by U.S. military aircraft.
"If U.S. fighter jets escort Pelosi's plane into Taiwan, it is [an] invasion," Hu Xijin, a columnist for the Global Times, tweeted. "The [People's Liberation Army] has the right to forcibly dispel Pelosi's plane and the U.S. fighter jets, including firing warning shots and making tactical movement of obstruction."
On Thursday, the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan along with its strike group took to the South China Sea after a port call in Singapore. The Navy's Seventh Fleet said it was a
"routine patrol in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific."
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