It was a picture-perfect shot, really. That was my thought when I saw US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi standing side by side with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei last Wednesday. But the one-day visit to the self-ruled island by the 82-year-old American politician has created no end of tension, not only for the US and China but also many of their allies across the Asia Pacific region.
Ms Pelosi, second in the line of presidential succession behind Vice President Kamala Harris, is the highest-ranking US representative to visit Taiwan since 1997 when Newt Gingrich, then the House speaker, was there. But what bothers Chinese leaders is that Ms Pelosi is a well-known China hawk, having frequently accused Beijing of human rights abuses and commented on Tibet.
Her visit went ahead despite warnings from various organs of the Chinese Communist Party, the foreign and defence ministries and the Standing Committee of the rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress. Her visit, they warned, would "push Taiwan into the abyss of disaster and bring deep misfortune" to its people.
