Before U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taipei for a controversial meeting with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, the White House was careful not to weigh in on the trip, stressing that the speaker of the House makes her own decisions.
But behind the scenes, officials in U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration were fuming at her insistence on using the trip as a capstone for her career at a moment of highly delicate relations with Beijing.
In an effort to quietly persuade Pelosi to delay the visit, the White House dispatched senior members of the National Security Council (NSC), as well as State Department officials, to brief the speaker and her team on the geopolitical risks, people familiar with the conversations said.