Pelosi In Asia: How China Could Be Pushed To The Brink By A Visit By The House Speaker

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Despite China's increasingly harsh warnings in recent days that a visit to the self-governing island would provoke a response, possibly even a military one, Speaker Nancy Pelosi started a tense tour of Asia on Sunday. Administration officials say they now expect that the tour will include a stop in Taiwan.

Ms. Pelosi arrived in Singapore on Monday after a stopover in Hawaii over the weekend to consult with American commanders responsible for the Indo-Pacific region. She stated in a statement that she planned to travel with a congressional delegation for high-level talks in Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan, but she did not mention Taiwan at any point in her remarks.

However, excluding Taiwan from an announcement due to security concerns is not unheard of, and according to the aides to President Biden, she is expected to go forward with the plan to make the highest-level visit by an American official to the island in the last 25 years. Officials in the administration have said that Ms. Pelosi might still alter her mind about flying to Taiwan, but they have also stressed that this is improbable.