by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis
Speaker of the House, Representative Nancy Pelosi, recently led a delegation of US politicians to Taiwan. China, which views Taiwan as a rebel province in need of forcible reunification, lost its collective s***.
China issued many poorly worded ridiculous sounding threats (that I must assume sounded more menacing in Mandarin instead of the bad Bond movie villain speak that the English translations invoked) against Representative Pelosi in particular and the US in general.
One official government Chinese paper (not that the Chinese have independent media) suggested that China should shoot down Pelosi's flight.
When Pelosi completed her trip the Chinese threw a more dangerous temper tantrum, putting in a near blockade of Taiwan and holding multiple days of live fire exercises that involved lobbing missiles over Taiwan and into Japanese territorial waters.
China also reduced communications with the US, sanctioned Pelosi and her associates, and issued ominous statements about how upset they were and that real soon people (read the US) would regret messing with them.