trip to taiwan she was going to go in april but she postponed the trip after testing positive for covid19 the white house on monday declined to weigh in directly on the matter noting she had not confirmed the trip but president joe biden last week raised concerns about it telling reporters that the military thinks her trip is not a good idea right now a pelosi trip may well loom over a call planned for thursday between biden and chinese president xi jinping their first conversation in four months a us official confirmed plans for the call to the associated press on the condition of anonymity ahead of the formal announcement us officials have said the administration doubts that china would take direct action against pelosi herself or try to sabotage the visit but they dont rule out the possibility that china could escalate provocative overflights of military aircraft in or near taiwanese airspace and naval patrols in the taiwan strait should the trip take place and they dont preclude chinese actions elsewhere in the region as a show of strength security analysts were divided tuesday about the extent of any threat during a trip and the need for any additional military protection the biggest risk during pelosis trip is of some chinese show of force gone awry or some type of accident that comes out of a demonstration of provocative action said mark cozad acting associate director of the international security and defense policy center at the rand corp so it could be an air collision it could be some sort of missile test and again when youre doing those types of things you know there is always the possibility that something could go wrong barry pavel director of the scowcroft center for strategy and security at the atlantic council scoffed at us officials reported consideration of aircraft carriers and warplanes to secure the speakers safety obviously the white house does not want the speaker to go and i think thats why youre getting some of these suggestions shes not going to go with an armada pavel said they also said that a steppedup us military presence to safeguard pelosi risked raising tensions it is very possible that our attempts to deter actually send a much different signal than the one we intend to send cozad said and so you get into some sort of an escalatory spiral where our attempts to deter are actually seen as increasingly provocative and vice versa and that can be a very dangerous dynamic on monday chinese foreign ministry spokesperson zhao lijian said beijing had repeatedly expressed its solemn position over a potential pelosi visit he told reporters that china is prepared to take firm and strong measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity milley said this week that the number of intercepts by chinese aircraft and ships in the pacific region with us and other partner forces has increased significantly over the past five years he said beijings