Why is everyone obsessed with Nancy Pelosi's flight to Taiwan?

On Tuesday, flight tracking website FlightRadar24 started an online queue due to a 'high volume of traffic' seemingly because people are tracking Nancy Pelosi's flight to Taiwan.

AirForce jet “SPAR19" flew the Speaker of the House to visit Taiwan which will mark the highest level visit from a US official since 1997.

The highly anticipated visit from Pelosi is being monitored by thousands of people eagerly awaiting to see how Pelosi's visit will go. But why are so many people interested in what seems like a normal official visit?

It all comes down to the implications of the trip.

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The status of Taiwan is contentious, China claims the country is a territory and President Xi Jinping's has made it clear he wants Taiwan to "reunify" with China.

However, the current Taiwan administration under Tsai Ing-wen claims they are their own self-governing island.

Recognizing Taiwan as an independent state has escalated tensions between the US and China and Pelosi's visit has only irritated the Chinese government more.

"If the U.S. insists on going its own way, China will take firm and powerful measures to safeguard China’s sovereignty and security interests.” Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said.

It was unclear to the public whether Pelosi would actually visit Taiwan given the threat from China. Glued to FlightRadar24 , it was clear Pelosi was landing in Taiwan on Tuesday morning.

Taking off from Subang Airport in Malaysia, many noted that SPAR19 purposefully avoided the South China Sea going around the Philippines to land in Taiwan.

Over 300,000 people were tracking SPAR19 as it made it's way to Taiwan on Tuesday leading FlightRadar24 to crash for an hour.

Back in May, Pelosi was supposedly going to visit Taiwan while visiting Asian countries but tested positive for Covid-19, halting her visit.

Even then, China warned the US to not allow the visit alluding to consequences.

However, the US is determined to show its commitment to Taiwan as President Biden has promised to defend Taiwan should there be a struggle between Taiwan and China. So Pelosi's trip to Taiwan was an important one for the US.

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