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Yet the war also brings two sobering thoughts. One is that neither the threat of sanctions nor the West’s arming of Ukraine deterred Russia. The other is that Russia’s nuclear threats have deterred America from intervening directly. China, too, has nuclear weapons. Contradictory emotions are apparent in a poll by the Taiwan Centre for International Strategic Studies, a think-tank. It showed a startling jump in the share of Taiwanese willing to fight to defend Taiwan, from 40% in December to 70% in March. A similar percentage supported extending the conscription period, a move currently under debate. But confidence that America would intervene has dropped markedly, from 55% to 43%. Scarcely a third of respondents thought Taiwan could hold off an invasion alone.

. . . the body of water separating China from the main island of Taiwan. Foreign nations have in recent years sailed warships through the strait on freedom of navigation exercises, prompting anger from Beijing.

China claims Taiwan, a self-governing democracy off its southern coast, as its own territory. It regards any visit by an American politician as an affront, let alone one by Ms. Pelosi, the highest-ranking U.S. official to go there since 1997.

A large number of Chinese military aircraft and ships crossed the halfway mark of the Taiwan Strait on Saturday, in a simulated land strike on the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own.

Joanne Ou, a spokeswoman for Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry, said Thursday that attacks on its website and the government’s English-language portal were tied to Chinese and Russian internet protocol addresses that attempted to access the websites as many as 8.5 million times per minute, making them inaccessible to users.