Despite warnings from Beijing, the speaker of the House of Representatives arrived Tuesday evening in Taiwan. The highest American official to visit the island in 25 years, she left less than 24 hours later.
A provocation for China, because the United States is not supposed to have official relations with the island territory of 23 million inhabitants, which it considers as one of its provinces to be reunited with the rest of the country.
In retaliation, Beijing has announced large-scale military exercises near its coasts.
On the palm-fringed beach of Xiamen, on the west side of the 200 km wide strait that separates the island from mainland China, there is no time for concern despite the clouds in the sky.
"A conflict? No, I'm not worried about it," said Mr. Huang, a young computer worker who is taking a walk during his lunch break.
"We, the people of Fujian, are used to the tensions in the Taiwan Strait. We have lived with this for decades," he explains, referring to the recurring tensions between the two shores since the 1950s.
Fujian Province in eastern China sits directly across from Taiwan, with which it shares a similar culture and a common Chinese dialect.
- Tent and binoculars -
"Something can happen at any time. But the probability is low, so we are not worried," notes Mr. Huang. "But the visit of Pelosi, necessarily, it breaks a little the balance that there was."
Despite the news, newlyweds all smiles take pictures, people walk their dogs and children frolic on the sand.
"I think and I hope there will be no war," Zheng Dahai, a 30-year-old who came with his son to set up a tent on the beach and have a bite to eat, told AFP.
"A conflict would have repercussions on us, our lives, there might even be injuries."
Behind him, six kilometers offshore, is the island of Kinmen, populated by just over 100,000 inhabitants.
Oddity of history: communist forces never managed to conquer it during and after the Chinese Civil War. It thus remained under the control of the Republic of China - the regime that now governs Taiwan.
If the situation is stable, this is one of the few places where the military forces of the mainland and the island face each other at such a short distance.
What to attract the curious: side Xiamen, a man observes Kinmen with his binoculars "to watch the military installations, the farmers and the life of the people there", he explains to AFP near an old bunker , witness of past bombardments.
"I don't want a war. We must live in peace and respect each other," said a pensioner who came to swim like every day, summer and winter.
"On the other hand, if you don't respect me, if you come to bully me, then that's another story. Whether the other is strong or not, even me, an old man, I will fight!"
Further on, two tourists take selfies in front of an emblematic monument of Xiamen: eight huge red giant Chinese characters, several meters high, which form a sentence addressed to the Taiwanese authorities opposite.
"One country, two systems: reunite China", indicates the slogan, in reference to the political compromise which allowed the reintegration of Hong Kong (1997) and Macau (1999).
Next to it, a sculpture in the shape of a handshake stages this hoped-for rapprochement.
"Taiwan is an inseparable part of China," Hu, a 40-year-old in a yellow tank top, who came to run on the seafront, told AFP.
"Sooner or later, the island will return" to the motherland, he assures, calm, before continuing his stretches.
