Speaker Pelosi’s Taiwan Trip: What It Meant and What Comes Next?

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a congressional delegation stopped in Taiwan as part of a trip to US allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific. The visit by so high-ranking a US figure—the first by a House Speaker in a quarter-century—attracted widespread international attention, was warmly welcomed in Taiwan and highly controversial in US political and policy circles, and prompted dire warnings from Beijing. China launched large-scale, live-fire military exercises near Taiwan, and imposed new economic sanctions against Taiwanese entities. Why was Pelosi’s visit controversial? What will be its longer-term effects on cross-Strait and US-China relations? Will the trip and its fallout help or hurt the interests of the US, Taiwan, and China?