During the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, the United States intervened by deploying two carrier groups in response to Chinese missile tests near major Taiwanese ports. These tests were a means of coercively influencing pro-independence elements during the Taiwan presidential election and were considered by China to be an "internal" matter. The U.S. action therefore triggered enormous nationalistic resentment, rooted largely in historical humiliations and infringements on Chinese sovereignty by foreign powers. They also fueled a determined drive to mitigate or prevent such infringements on Chinese sovereignty in the future.