Speaker Pelosi ensures that US assurances regain credibility

Xi seems to have not got the memo that the Legislature is independent of the Executive under the US Constitution, for his accurate surmise that Biden was unhappy about Pelosi's trip to Taiwan led him to believe that the White House could get it cancelled.

- M.D. NALAPAT

On 1 October 1949, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong announced that "China has stood up". The slogan resonated with a population that had endured more than a century of turmoil and humiliation, and who were eager to leave that tragic past behind. What Mao delivered was a country whose capital controlled more than twice the land area that it had in previous eras. The first Red Emperor annexed Manchuria, large chunks of Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, wisely avoiding any serious effort at taking over Taiwan, now that the island was teeming with KMT troops that could be expected to put up a fierce resistance. Apart from that, there was the Taiwan Straits, a ribbon of water that continues to protect the island nation from attack by its much bigger neighbour to the west. Hong Kong was also left alone, as Mao had no desire to enter into a conflict with the Anglo-American alliance, although soon afterwards, worry about the intentions of General MacArthur caused the CCP Chairman to order the PLA to enter the Korean peninsula in force on the side of Kim Il Sung. Behind his rhetoric of being ready to sacrifice hundreds of millions of lives should the necessity for human sacrifice on such a scale arise, Mao was a pragmatist who focused on the stabilisation of the CCP regime in China, now that he had more than doubled the size of the country. He declared publicly that any absorption of Taiwan would take place only in an undefined and remote future, unlike the present CCP supremo, who says that the takeover of Taiwan will take place during his stint