Nancy Pelosi's Taiwan Visit Crashes Weibo As Millions Flock Online To Debate, Visit Seen As Blow To China

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan briefly crashed Twitter, Inc's TWTR Chinese counterpart Weibo Corp WB, as millions flocked online to discuss her trip, Bloomberg reports.

Weibo apologized for a half-hour outage of its mobile app in the period immediately before Pelosi's landing at 10:40 p.m. on August 2, when countless messages tracking her plane flooded social media.

Beijing saw Pelosi's trip as a provocation as it considered Taiwan a part of its territory. Pelosi is a longtime critic of China and has been a forthright human rights advocate.

Newt Gingrich, the American politician and speaker in 1997, visited the island last month and said that she (Pelosi) had to go, so that China would understand the U.S. is not a "paper tiger."

Responses on Weibo flipped the "paper tiger" accusation on China, with some netizens expressing disappointment that their government failed to stop Pelosi's trip. 

After Pelosi's landing, China halted natural sand exports to Taiwan and some fish and fruit imports from the island. 

Beijing also announced missile tests and military drills encircling the island.

Weibo's trending topics on August 3 included Pelosi's whirlwind visit and China's reaction.

The U.S. - China tensions continue to gather momentum as the former strive to restrict the latter's access to cutting-edge semiconductor techs, including targetting its chipmakers. 

Additionally, U.S. Chips Act also forbids companies from acquiring funding to restrict their production of advanced chips in China.

Price Action: WB shares closed at $18.28 on Tuesday.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons