Nancy Pelosi calls Xi Jinping a ‘scared bully’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Chinese Pesident Xi Jinping a ‘scared bully’ as Beijing continues its military drills around Taiwan following her trip to the island.

‘I think that he is in a fragile place,’ she told MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday morning, referring to the forthcoming elections in China. ‘He is acting like a scared bully.’

Xi is expected to get an unprecedented third term as Chinese leader. China has been conducting military drills around Taiwan in a blatant show of force as part of their fury about the speaker’s stop on the island. 

Pelosi defended her visit to Taiwan, which infuriated the Chinese, and said she would do it again.

‘Absolutely. Without any question,’ she told NBC’s Today show when asked.

China conducted ballistic missile launches and simulated sea and air attacks in the skies and seas surrounding Taiwan

Pelosi did a media tour Tuesday morning to discuss her trip. She was also at the White House to join President Joe Biden for his signing of the CHIPS act into law. The Biden administration was said to be unhappy about her visit although officials publicly defended the speaker’s right to go there. 

It is unclear if the speaker and the president discussed her 24 hour stop on the island.  

Self-governed Taiwan’s 23 million people live under the constant threat of invasion by authoritarian China, which views the island as its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary.   

‘The people of Taiwan welcomed the visit. The Chinese government may not have. But China will not be allowed to isolate Taiwan,’ Pelosi told NBC.

She went on to say on Morning Joe: ‘I don’t think the president of China should control the schedules of members of Congress, or anyone else who wants to visit Taiwan. He’s trying to isolate Taiwan.’

‘We didn’t go there to talk about China. We went there to talk about Taiwan,’ she added. 

She landed in Taipei last Tuesday as part of a longer tour of South East Asisa. 

This weekend China conducted ballistic missile launches and simulated sea and air attacks in the skies and seas surrounding Taiwan.

China’s Eastern Theatre Command said on Monday it would conduct fresh joint drills focusing on anti-submarine and sea assault operations.

The Biden administration had urged Beijing not to use Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan as an excuse for a military response.  

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week: ‘I hope very much that Beijing will not manufacture a crisis or seek a pretext to increase its aggressive military activity. We countries around the world believe that escalation serves no one and could have unintended consequences that serve no one’s interests.’ 

Chinese Pesident Xi Jinping is expected to get an unprecedented third term as Chinese leader

Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined President Joe Biden for his signing of the CHIPS act into law

Speaker Nancy Pelosi defied repeated warnings from the Chinese not to visit Taiwan; she landed there last Tuesday

Meanwhile, Biden administration officials told Bloomberg that the White House was fuming over Pelosi’s unannounced visit to Taiwan.

They said senior members of the National Security Council and State Department officials tried to discourage her from the visit but she refused to call off the trip which enraged Beijing.

Biden officials accused Pelosi of using the trip as a ‘capstone for her career’ at a moment of highly delicate relations with Beijing, according to Bloomberg.