as the war in ukraine continues, the alliance has agreed to start planning for a greater role in co ordinating military aid to the country. on the second day of this meeting in brussels, ministers will mark the signing in washington on 4th april, 1949, of the north atlantic treaty which established the transatlantic political and military alliance. nato started with 12 members but now has 32, with the newest being finland and sweden. nato s secretary generaljens stoltenberg has been speaking at the ceremony, and says the bloc not only strengthens europe s security, but also makes north america stronger. to nato, the united states has more friends and more allies than any other major power. i don t believe in america alone, just as i don t believe in europe alone. i believe in america and europe together in nato. the uk foreign secretary, david cameron, has ruled out western boots on the ground in ukraine. we are looking for a nato mission for ukraine, not a nato in ukraine.
protests. they re intersectional, so you see different people with different ages, different socio economic backgrounds, different ethnicities, different religions, participating in these protests. so it s very difficult, and they re very broad based so it s difficult to quell them even though there is a lot of violence being used. the chinese leader xi jinping has been addressing the 20th communist party congress. in a report on the five years since the last congress, he cited the many accomplishments of the communist party in achieving what he called socialism with chinese characteristics for the new era. 0n taiwan, mr xi said that separatist tendencies and foreign influence had been countered, while in hong kong he claimed a high degree of autonomy had been maintained under one country two systems. his first two terms saw an anti corruption drive and a crackdown on dissent, as well as the imposition of severe controls in xinjiang and a draconian security law
are ranked in order and by that reckoning nancy pelosi is number three after the president and the vice president, the speaker of the houses third in line succession to the presidency. so it is, first of all, difficult for them to believe she is not a very important person and then because she is in president biden s party and his close ally in governments they also are having a hard time imagining accepting that she is not collaborating or cooperating and perhaps even taking instruction from him in the decisions she makes. ice the decisions she makes. joe biden has the decisions she makes. joe biden has had to backtrack more than once, of course, for claims that he has made in support of taiwan. would it be fair to support of taiwan. would it be fairto surmise, do support of taiwan. would it be fair to surmise, do you think, that he did not condone nancy pelosi s proposed trip to taiwan during that telephone conversation with mr xie today? yes. i don t know that they
by saying, 0n taiwan, the us policy has not changed. so where does that leave us? with an assessment of that phone call, here s the bbc s barbara plett usher in washington. the chinese are pretty blunt about their position on taiwan and that readout said that xijinping had emphasised that position, which is that taiwan is part of china and there is no room for taiwanese independence, that he had told president biden that they should stick with the one china policy. that means basically that washington recognises that there is only one chinese government and that it is in beijing, but it only acknowledges china s position on taiwan and it says that the status of taiwan should not be decided by force and there had been some question for some time about whether those goalposts were shifting. chinese were wondering, there was some confusion about whether the us policy was changing and then the trip
that nancy pelosi may or may not take at this point sort of added fuel to the fire because she is a very senior member, a very senior position as the speaker of the house and she also belongs to the president s party. let s speak with shelley rigger, a brown professor of east asian politics, and recently a fulbright scholar at the national taiwan university in taipei. thank you very much forjoining us on bbc news. i wonder how the people of taiwan may feel about all of this? is there a danger here that nancy pelosi s proposed trip could prove more harmful to the people of taiwan than to us china relations? yes. this whole controversy is also controversial in taiwan because many people there are eager for the because many people there are