Good evening everyone and welcome to the Worldview Report. I’m your host, Brannon Howse. China's military exercises surrounding the self-ruled island of Taiwan were scheduled to wind down and end on Sunday, August 7th, but on Monday, August 8th, Beijing announced it is extending the military drills which Taipei officials have blasted as an outright blockade and simulation for a future invasion. The drills were originally set for four days, but have now been extended by at least another week. According to a report by Zero Hedge, not only have the drills launched in the wake of last week’s visit to Taiwan of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, disrupting surrounding air traffic and shipping lanes key to global trade, but they've upped tensions with Washington, which was clearly by design. The stage is being set for war in the Asian theater. Pelosi gave the Chinese what they needed and wanted, a pretext to launch their war games in a tit-for-tat escalation. The Biden administration then ordered the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group to stay in waters near Taiwan for longer than planned.