I'm Robert Lawrence Kuhn and what I'm watching is what everyone is watching: United States Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, and the Chinese mainland's whole-of-government, indeed whole-of-society's reaction and response.

Everyone knows the obvious facts. Pelosi is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years — a high-profile visit of symbolism and flourish — thus giving Taiwan, as the Chinese mainland sees it, tacit encouragement of quasi-independence, which the mainland vigorously opposes, because Taiwan, China avers, is its sovereign territory and internal affairs.