Despite ratcheting tensions and rhetoric, the ruling Chinese Communist Party is unlikely to follow through with its most extreme threats, such as one from state-connected media members threatening to shoot down House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's plane if she lands in Taipei, former Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News.
Gingrich posited that though the CCP has made the situation potentially deadly serious and the Biden administration having weakened the American military, even the bellicose leadership of the Xi regime understands the U.S. and its Indo-Pacific allies like Australia would not hesitate to strike back and cripple the world's most populous nation.
"The worst case – if they shot down her airplane, that would be literally an act of war. And we would have no choice except to retaliate massively," said Gingrich, who visited both China and Taiwan while Jiang Zemin was the CCP's leader.
"That's when people tend to forget – the US, despite the weakness of the Pentagon, despite all of the truly woke and stupid behaviors, still has a powerful military."
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With the help of allies in Sydney and Tokyo, China would likely not only receive retaliatory attacks but their economy would be crippled by the dual blow of being unable to continue its massive exports of goods to the U.S. and the fact its reliance on U.S. exports like agricultural commodities would halt.
"We could isolate China very fast," he said. "Their cities [would] start to have unemployment. If they can't import, they begin to starve. So the Chinese are not necessarily in a strong position to try to bully us. And I think that we need to recognize that."
Additionally, Gingrich said that with any dictatorship, a republican democracy like the United States must stand up to them and prove they are not as infallible in reality as they project upon the world.
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"If we were to cave right now, who knows, psychologically, what they would conclude from that, and about whether or not they would then decide to push us even further by trying to occupy Taiwan."
Regarding domestic news, Gingrich praised Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker for challenging Sen. Raphael G. Warnock, D-Ga., to a campaign debate, which the Atlanta pastor reportedly immediately rejected.
"[Warnock] is a very articulate preacher and all that stuff… I thought it was fascinating. I think every Republican candidate in the country should challenge their opponent to defend what I think is the tax-increase-87,000 more-internal-revenue-agents-higher spending-greater-inflation-bill, which is what this really is," he said.
"I also have a challenge I want to take this chance to put out. I think the Senate Republicans have an absolute obligation to use every procedural process to stop this bill from getting voted on before the recess. If this country gets to look at this bill throughout August, it will die."
Gingrich noted how there are many tight races in Democrat-leaning jurisdictions such as his home states of Georgia and Pennsylvania, wherein the latter liberal Lt. Gov. John Fetterman faces cardiothoracic surgeon Mehmet Oz – or Arizona where incumbent Mark Kelly is viewed as vulnerable.
In that way, he suggested such Democratic candidates be put on the defense over their president's inflationary policies and mounting crises. Republicans need to net one Senate seat to regain the majority.
