.png){kind=icon}
Administrator- Joined
- May 11, 2013
- Posts
- 24,890
- Reaction score
- 13,614
- Points
- 2,755
- Location
- Morganton, N.C.
- Website
- conversations-ii.freeforums.net
(The Guardian) Newt Gingrich, the last speaker of the House of Representatives to visit Taiwan, has backed current speaker Nancy Pelosi’s planned trip to the self-governing island.
“I feel very strongly that Speaker Pelosi should go to Taiwan and she should take a bipartisan congressional delegation,” Gingrich told a conservative gathering in Washington on Monday. “And I say this with some authority as the highest ranking American official ever to visit Taiwan.”
Gingrich, a Republican, went to the island in 1997. Pelosi’s planned visit has prompted China to threaten “forceful measures” and even a possible military response, the Financial Times reported, causing a headache for the White House.
Joe Biden has said the US military assessed “it is not a good idea right now”.
But Gingrich, addressing the America First Policy Institute - a thinktank comprising many Donald Trump administration alumni - accused the state department of “timidity covered by insecurity and an eagerness to appease” and claimed that the “woke” defence department’s own timidity is “dangerous”.
He added: “If the Department of Defense is not certain that it can protect the American speaker of the House in a public visit, why would they think they could protect Taiwan? If you’re the Chinese communists and you watch us flinch after the total mess in Afghanistan and the total mess in Ukraine, you begin to think this is an administration that’s just begging to be bullied.”
Gingrich added that he has “enormous disagreements” with Pelosi on many issues. “But on this one, I think her instinct is right and I hope she sticks to her guns. The only thing I would suggest is she should make it a bipartisan congressional delegation to show both parties are committed to the independence of China.”
“I feel very strongly that Speaker Pelosi should go to Taiwan and she should take a bipartisan congressional delegation,” Gingrich told a conservative gathering in Washington on Monday. “And I say this with some authority as the highest ranking American official ever to visit Taiwan.”
Gingrich, a Republican, went to the island in 1997. Pelosi’s planned visit has prompted China to threaten “forceful measures” and even a possible military response, the Financial Times reported, causing a headache for the White House.
Joe Biden has said the US military assessed “it is not a good idea right now”.
But Gingrich, addressing the America First Policy Institute - a thinktank comprising many Donald Trump administration alumni - accused the state department of “timidity covered by insecurity and an eagerness to appease” and claimed that the “woke” defence department’s own timidity is “dangerous”.
He added: “If the Department of Defense is not certain that it can protect the American speaker of the House in a public visit, why would they think they could protect Taiwan? If you’re the Chinese communists and you watch us flinch after the total mess in Afghanistan and the total mess in Ukraine, you begin to think this is an administration that’s just begging to be bullied.”
Gingrich added that he has “enormous disagreements” with Pelosi on many issues. “But on this one, I think her instinct is right and I hope she sticks to her guns. The only thing I would suggest is she should make it a bipartisan congressional delegation to show both parties are committed to the independence of China.”
MOTM
