Episode description

The US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan on 2-3 August, and China responded with large military exercises and missile launches. To analyse this, Katie Stallard speaks to Bonnie Glaser, the director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. They talk about the signals Beijing is trying to send with its live-fire drills, and what the risks are of a serious escalation in the Taiwan Strait. 

They discuss the background to the current crisis, the breakdown of US-China relations, and the range of coercive measures Beijing could bring to bear on Taiwan in the coming weeks and months. Plus, what the Chinese leader Xi Jinping has really said about potential timelines in trying to seize the island.

Further reading:

Is China preparing to invade Taiwan?

The crisis around Taiwan is only just beginning.

The pointlessness of Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan trip.

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