Here Are All The Ways China's Hitting Back Against Nancy Pelosi's Taiwan Trip
NDTV
Pelosi's trip presents President Xi Jinping with a dilemma just months before a twice-a-decade leadership congress later this year.
China hit back at US House speaker Nancy Pelosi's landmark touchdown in Taiwan late Tuesday with an unprecedented range of actions against the self-ruled island it considers its own.
Within minutes of her arrival, the People's Liberation Army announced provocative drills and missile launches encircling Taiwan. That was swiftly followed by economic sanctions on Taiwanese agricultural goods and imports of Chinese sand.
Pelosi's trip presents President Xi Jinping with a dilemma just months before a twice-a-decade leadership congress later this year. His response must be hard enough to satisfy a nationalist public hyped-up by bellicose commentators, but avoid further destabilizing relations with the US and doing more damage to China's already-faltering economy.
"For Xi Jinping, this is a really critical window between now and the 20th Party Congress," Jude Blanchette, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said on Bloomberg Television. "He really can't afford to be seen as weak. That's why there's significant concern about where this could go."
