but a huge breakthrough on the president s agenda with news that democrat senatorjoe manchin will finally support a bill that injects billion into key climate policy. and in ukraine the counter offensive is on with progress to report around the city of kherson but will the supply of weapons from the west come quickly enough to sustain the momentum? tonight with the context, the republican strategist rina shah and chief political commentator for the i paul waugh. hello, welcome to the programme. it has been a while. four months in fact, sincejoe biden and xi xinping spoke, on the phone. today the two leaders talked for two hours 17 minutes. a long time. but let s be honest, there s plenty to talk about. the war in ukraine, china s behaviour in the south china sea, trade embargoes, nuclear proliferation, taiwan. and specifically the planned visit of the house speaker nancy pelosi, who is heading there next month. that has infuriated beijing. ms pelosi would be the highest
explaining why the united states tried to dissuade and how the united states tried to dissuade russia going through the sanctions. and essentially laying out to china that if china were to do a similar thing in taiwan, similar results would follow. so there is slightly, shall we say, threatening tone to this on both sides and you can clearly see what was on the mind of each of the leaders and there is not a lot of rinse and tear. leaders and there is not a lot of rinse and tear. the united states sa s its rinse and tear. the united states says its policy rinse and tear. the united states says its policy towards rinse and tear. the united states says its policy towards taiwan . says its policy towards taiwan has not changed. but the official decision of the united states is that they would only recognise taiwan unofficially. if you send the house speaker, third in line, to taiwan, does that to you suggest a change in policy? h0 taiwan, does that to you suggest a change in policy?