Taiwan ignores threats from China, braces for Pelosi visit aftermath

Triggering a major escalation of tensions between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States (US), a top American official -- Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi -- landed in Taipei, Taiwan on Tuesday, ignoring furious threats from Beijing that China would treat this as a violation of its sovereignty and respond with military force.

America has trodden carefully in its relations with communist China, especially on the issue of Taiwan. Senior US officials have avoided Taiwan, and only one US president, Dwight D Eisenhower, had visited the island in 1960. The last high-ranking American official