joining us now nbc news chief white house correspondent kristen welker and michael crowley, "new york times" diplomatic correspondent kristen, let's start with you at the white house. look at all that's laid out behind you we are expecting to see the president any minute now walk us through the important of this visit and what we can expect to unfold. >> reporter: hi, ana, it is to good to be with you as the pomp and pageantry gets underway here on the south lawn as we await these two leaders. this is the first official state visit since president biden welcomed president macron of france last year it's the first time that the u.s. is hosting the leader of south korea in an official capacity, a state visit, since the clinton administration it really underscores the significance of this relationship, and they are marking a 70-year alliance between the u.s. and south korea, and of course critical issues will be front and center. north korea being at the top of that list with president biden and the president of south korea expected to announce a new deterrence agreement the u.s. poised

the conversation all morning long, former you assistant secretary of the treasury, monica you crowley, michael lee strategy founder, michael lee. "mornings with maria" is live right now. and we begin this morning with china's military conducting aerial and naval blockade drills around taiwan on its last scheduled day of exercises. at least 70 chinese war plains and 11 -- war planes and 11 war ships responded today. here's what we were told yesterday. >> if you look at the sorties of the chinese air force together with the ships coming close to taiwan and any accident might spark an uncontrollable war between taiwan and china and if other countries are trying to intervene it might be the start of a war of a grand scale. maria: all of this following house speaker kevin mccarthy's meeting with taiwan's president in california last week. joining me is the gatestone institute senior fellow, the author of the coming collapse of china and the great u.s. china tech war, gordon chang is with us this morning. great to see you. thanks so much for weighing in here. >> thank you, maria h. maria: how would