to double its numbers in the last decade. welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and around the globe. president biden has spent more than two hours on the phone with his chinese counterpart, xijinping. the two leaders both issued warnings about taiwan, which has once again emerged as a key point of tension, following reports of a possible visit there by the us house speaker nancy pelosi. although the visit hasn t been confirmed, mr biden told xi jinping, that washington strongly opposed any unilateral moves that would change the island s status, or undermine stability across the taiwan straits. president xi said: those who play with fire will only get burned. joe biden responded to that with on taiwan, the us policy has not changed. let s speak now to craig singleton, a national security expert, and former us diplomat, who s a senior china fellow at the foundation for the defense of democracies. thank you forjoining here on bbc world news. it was something of a marat
but what action could raising actually take if nancy pelosi decides to press ahead with this trip to taiwan?- this trip to taiwan? sure. speaker this trip to taiwan? sure. speaker pelosi s - this trip to taiwan? sure. speaker pelosi s trip - this trip to taiwan? sure. speaker pelosi s trip is i speaker pelosi s trip is obviously not happening in a vacuum and the white house has made clear that it has major reservations about her trip and the plans, simply because they could disrupt other parts of the very complex water faceted relationship that exists between the us and china. there is precedent for nancy pelosi s make trip back in the 1990s, former speaker of the house newt gingrich travelled to taiwan but that was during a very different period in us china relations when things were relatively positive and thatis were relatively positive and that is obviouslyjust not the case today. should nancy pelosi travelled to taiwan? i think what we are going to see quite immediately will be