Poking the bear
After Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taipei, China began a series of military operations including warplanes, troop ships, and rockets fired into the waters around three sides of the island of Taiwan. The exercises didn’t end until Wednesday. Now, barely four days later, another jet has landed in Taipei and discharged another delegation of members of the United States Congress, led by Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts. Markey was joined by four members of Congress. The agenda sounds mostly the same as Pelosi’s trip, with plans to discuss trade deals, supply chain management, and “security.” (That last portion was left a bit ambiguous, no doubt by design.) There was no immediate response from Beijing, but I’m sure it will be arriving presently. (NBC News)
Here’s part of the welcoming party.
There are a couple of differences between this trip and Speaker Pelosi’s that are worth noting. This time, rather than announcing the visit in advance, the delegation returned to our usual habit of keeping this off the schedule and not notifying anyone until they had already landed in Taipei.
