Pelosi visit gave China a golden opportunity to practice invasion

I doubt anyone in Nancy Pelosi's staff or indeed anyone in the Pentagon or State Department imagined that her trip to Taiwan would be a Godsend to Beijing. The Chinese communist party leadership must have been dying to rehearse a full-scale invasion of the breakaway republic but Xi Zinping, wily bird that he is, knew that the US would kick up a huge fuss and might even seek a UN Permanent Security Council emergency meeting to condemn China. So all previous military exercises aimed at Taiwan have been hostile and aggressive but relatively small-scale. But the arrival of Pelosi in Taipei gave Beijing a wonderful opportunity to dust off the simulated invasion exercise and launch it with all missiles firing and effectively get away with it because China had warned the US and the region that if Pelosi dared to go to Taiwan Beijing would react with appropriate military measures. In hindsight, Pelosi's trip was a gift to Beijing. It gave them due cause and justification, in their eyes, to try out the invasion plan which has been sitting on the shelf in some bunkered PLA HQ, ready to go. And they HAVE got away with it. The US cried foul, sure, but that was it. The White House even cancelled a planned test of an ICBM, not wishing to exacerbate an already tense time with China, and the Ronald Reagan carrier strike force which has been operating in the Indo-Pacific, was ordered to stay away from waters anywhere near Taiwan. On top of all that, when Lloyd Austin, US defence secretary, and General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, tried to contact their counterparts in Beijing they got the brush-off. I am afraid to say that Pelosi's bravado visit to Taiwan showed up America's inherent weakness in the face of China's belligerence. President Xi will have been delighted. He won, the US lost. Very bad news.