Ian Williams Ian Williams

China’s Taiwan tantrum is already backfiring

Xi Jinping has badly miscalculated

(Credit: Getty images)

Chinese social media is full of anger and frustration – because the military didn’t shoot down Nancy Pelosi’s plane. As she headed to Taiwan, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) whipped up a wave of rabid online nationalism. Influential commentators led by Hu Xijin, the former editor of the CCP’s Global Times, suggested the speaker of the US House of Representatives could be taken out, a view that was widely applauded.

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Ian Williams
Written by
Ian Williams
Ian Williams is a former foreign correspondent for Channel 4 News and NBC, and author of The Fire of the Dragon: China’s New Cold War (Birlinn).

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