“We come in peace,” said Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, upon her arrival in Taiwan on Tuesday August 2. This short visit of less than 24 hours angered China, which considers the island a rebel province. Military trials have been announced for several days, very close to the Taiwanese coast.
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Yet another provocation or the starting point of a conflagration? To understand this, we must first go back to 1949, when Mao took power in Beijing and pushed the incumbent leader into exile on the small island of Taiwan. The beginning of a diplomatic ambiguity, the magnitude of which takes on a new turn this summer. Chinese rhetoric is getting tougher than ever.
Submit, go to war, or preserve the status quo? The fate of the Taiwanese is being played out. Find our story in video, with the lighting of Valérie Niquet, specialist in Asia and senior researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research.
