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On April 5, leader of China's Taiwan region Tsai Ing-wen met with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California. The spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that this is, in essence, the United States colluding with the Taiwan authorities and conniving at attempts by separatists seeking "Taiwan independence" to carry out political activities on the U.S. soil, engaging in official interaction between the United States and Taiwan, and elevating the substantive relations between the United States and Taiwan. The Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress and China's Ministry of National Defense all issued statements condemning the meet.

For Tsai, she seems to be not learning from the past lessons and head-strong in pushing her "Taiwan independence" agenda.

Last time, when she met with a U.S. House Speaker, it didn't end well for her. Since U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August, 2022, Tsai Ing-wen has been significantly weakened. The local election held in November that year resulted in Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suffering major defeat. Among the elected 21 county and city chief posts, the Chinese Kuomintang won 13 seats while DPP only claimed five. Tsai resigned as the chairperson of DPP after the results came in.

Her approval rating has crashed. In mid-December in 2022, the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation poll found Tsai's approval rating plummeted to 37.5 percent, and hasn't rebounded since. The public on the island is facing hiking electricity bill which is expected to be increased by an average of 11 percent due to the power company Taipower posting losses of around $8.74 billion in 2022. An online poll conducted by Yahoo showed that 79.7 percent of the people have no confidence in electricity supply this summer.

On the international stage, a major blow struck her. On March 26, Honduras formally established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, after Panama, El Salvador, the Dominican Republican and Nicaragua have established or resumed diplomatic relations China in recent years. According to an article published by the South China Morning Post, Honduras is the ninth country, or the fifth one in Latin America, to abandon Tsai since she took office. One more friend for China and one less "ally" for Tsai.

"In her eyes, only Washington counts, even if it means turning her island into a beachhead for the Americans to take on China that could well trigger the third world war," SCMP columnist Alex Lo wrote.

And that's what she's doing by this new transgression. Transiting in the United States and meeting with U.S. officials is another attempt to appease and kowtow to her Anglo-Saxon masters while disregarding and selling-out the people she's leading. She might think that as long as Uncle Sam is on her side, she and her party would have a chance to sustain their power and their legacy.

She's wrong. No politics can be insulated from public opinion. Over the past several years, Tsai and her party have been one of the chief provocateurs of instability and tension in East Asia and the Western Pacific. Her submissive posture towards the United States emboldened the U.S. politicians so much that culminated in Nancy Pelosi's visit to the island, an action that risked putting China and the U.S. on a direct path to confrontation. And while she thinks she may have gained the eyes and ears of the international community, her inability to produce good governance results and economic prosperity have been major forces behind her allies leaving her one by one.

She's got nothing now, other than a shattered political legacy that will be condemned in the annals of history.

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