She didn't need to go to Taiwan to warn China. The US has been arming Taiwan for years, and China knows where the US stands. If anything, Pelosi/the US escalated a potential conflict instead of diminishing tensions.

The problem with the Washington Post is a lot of people don't trust it. Jeff Bezos won a CIA contract that hurt the Post's reputation, and ex-CIA write for the paper. I don't know enough about it to provide my opinion, but here's a link about the contract; https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/18/the-cia-and-the-washington-post/