#Pelosi #Taiwan #Travel #Swamp #Airplane #Tracker
Hundreds of thousands of people turned on a flight-tracking website on Tuesday to find out if US official Nancy Pelosi was actually going to fly to Taiwan, despite China’s angry protests.
The problem was that there were so many of them – a site record of over 708,000 – that Flightradar24 said it had to restrict access from non-subscribers to keep the service online.
“Unfortunately, user volume has made it necessary to deploy our waiting room feature, which measures access,” the company said in a statement, citing “unprecedented” interest.
The sudden fixation on the plane carrying Pelosi, dubbed SPAR19, was fueled in large part by uncertainty over whether the Speaker of the US House of Representatives would go ahead with the trip she had declined to confirm.
It matters because Pelosi, the second in line for the presidency, is the highest-profile US elected official to visit Taiwan in 25 years, and Beijing has made it clear it views her presence as a major provocation.
After the plane landed safely on the Taipei tarmac – speculation had mounted that China might act against the jet – the mystery was gone and the curious crowd dispersed.
“Shortly after SPAR19 landed, normal access was quickly restored for all users,” Flightradar24 said.
China regards self-governing, democratic Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to one day conquer the island, by force if necessary.
It tries to keep Taiwan isolated on the world stage and opposes countries that have official exchanges with Taipei.
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