Newt Gingrich Responds to Pelosi’s Trip to Taiwan, Calls Chinese Threats a ‘Bluff’

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) threats in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) trip to Taiwan are merely posturing.

Speaking to Fox News, Gingrich said a similar scenario unfolded in 1997 when he visited both China and Taiwan. He was the last speaker to visit the self-governing island country.

At the time, CCP officials invited Gingrich to deliver speeches in Beijing and Shanghai but their rhetoric changed when he mentioned visiting Taiwan. For decades, the CCP has claimed Taiwan is its territory despite it being a functionally democratic and independent state since 1949.

Gingrich, a Republican, said that a deal was made for him to visit China to deliver speeches before visiting Japan and then Taiwan. He said the agreement was made in such a way that he wouldn’t directly go from China to Taiwan.

“They backed down,” he said Monday, referring to the Chinese regime. “Their current bluff is just that.”

“Look, they are harassing Taiwan every week. They are flying aircraft into Taiwanese space. They recently announced a live-fire zone off of Taiwan,” he added. “They’re doing all they can to rattle the Taiwanese people, who are 24 million free people with a free election and a free news media, who produce, by the way, about 67 percent of the world’s high-value computer chips. So it’s a very important place.”

Arrival

In a statement Tuesday, Pelosi confirmed that she and a congressional delegation touched down in Taiwan, saying the trip is “focused on mutual security, economic partnership, and democratic governance.”

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (C) arrives in Songshan Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, on Aug. 2, 2022, in a still from video. (Taiwan Foreign Ministry, Pool via Reuters/Screenshot via NTD)

“In the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) accelerating aggression, our

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