Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an interview with NBC’s “Today” on Tuesday morning characterized the totalitarian communist nation of China as “one of the freest societies in the world.”
“We still support the One China policy,” referring to the CCP’s denial of Taiwan as a sovereign nation. “We go there to acknowledge the status quo is what our policy is. There was nothing disruptive about that.”
“It was only about saying China is one of the freest societies in the world,” she said. “Don’t take it from me. That’s from Freedom House. A little democracy, courageous people. And, and it just, I don’t know why it is except there’s some commercial interest who would like to diminish the relationship.”
China has implemented a brutal Covid Zero policy that has resulted in totalitarian state surveillance, widespread censorship of freedom of speech, forced immunization of Chinese citizens, and oppressive lockdowns that are the equivalent of house arrest without due process. The CCP’s lockdowns have continued in major cities such as Beijing for over two years and have led to mass starvation in certain urban areas.
Last week, CNN International Correspondent Selina Wang reported on the scene in Beijing to show viewers the repressive Covid Zero lockdown conditions.
The CNN reporter notes that nearly all public life in Beijing has come to a grinding halt over a few dozen cases.
“Life in Beijing: relentless covid testing & health app that dictates where I go,” Wang wrote on Twitter. “Green code is needed to enter public areas. Red means quarantine/isolation. Authorities track people’s movements thru these apps. Concern is this surveillance will stay long after covid is gone.”
Pelosi, fresh off a Taiwan trip that heightened regional tensions in the Pacific, is denying that her trip brought the U.S. and China closer to armed conflict. In the aftermath of her visit, China announced new military exercises off the Taiwanese coast. The Taiwanese defense ministry “said it detected 66 aircraft and 14 warships conducting naval and air exercises,” reported the Taipei Times.
The House speaker, however, argued her trip “honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant Democracy.”
Pelosi told Savannah Guthrie on Tuesday her trip “followed the President’s direction that we would have a focus on the Asian Pacific,” and added that “it’s important to us to have parliamentary to parliamentary exchanges.”
Speaker Pelosi’s trip drew a heated response from China, which also resulted in import restrictions on Taiwan’s citrus and fish. The fallout from Pelosi’s trip may be long-lasting damage to U.S.-China relations and increased prices for consumers. The aftermath was reported by ABC News on Tuesday.
“The last time we [saw] a crisis like this was in 1996,” Kai Hao Yang, assistant professor of economics at Yale School of Management, told ABC News. “At that time [the] computer chips market was not dominated by Taiwan manufacturers yet, plus the market was a lot smaller than it is right now.”
“Chinese President Xi Jinping warned of economic consequences during a call with President Joe Biden before Pelosi’s trip,” ABC News reported. “How would U.S. consumers be impacted? First, China could hamstring Taiwan’s ability to export products. Taiwan is one of the United States’ top 10 trade partners. In addition to vehicles and machinery — important Taiwanese imports — the island is also home to TSMC, the largest manufacturer of computer processor chips in the world.”
“Some people talk about China blockading Taiwan’s ports so Taiwan’s chips can’t go out,” Ming-Jen Lin, professor of economics at National Taiwan University, said in an email to ABC News. “If this really happens, it’s another story. But I think we are far from there.”
Speaker Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi, notably, dumped millions in chip stocks prior to the House’s passage of the CHIPS Act, which would provide hundreds of millions to U.S. manufacturers to produce semiconducters that can compete with China’s.
“Paul Pelosi sold between $1 million and $5 million worth of NVIDIA stock, or 25,000 shares, at an average price of $165.05 on July 26, according to a mandatory congressional financial disclosure filed Tuesday by the speaker. Members of Congress are only required to report the values of their trades in broad ranges,” Business Insider reported. “The disclosure states that by selling the shares, Paul Pelosi suffered a ‘total loss of $341,365’.”
NVIDIA is based in Taiwan. On Tuesday, prior to President Biden’s expected passage of the CHIPS Act into law, NVIDIA’s stock was down nearly 6% on the week.
While Paul Pelosi may have taken a marginal loss on the NVIDIA stock dump, he has made a fortune off tech stocks in 2022 thus far.
“The week before the House Judiciary Committee voted on reigning in big tech, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband exercised a bullish bet on Google-parent Alphabet, in a timely transaction that netted him $5.3 million,” Fortune reported in July.
“The antitrust bill was advanced as a push by the government to curb the ‘nregulated power’ of big tech firms Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook,” Fortune adds. “It was the final part of a six-part package called ‘Ending Platform Monopolies Act’ aimed at restricting how big tech companies offer their products to ensure they don’t use their size to dominate the market.”
“However, despite its good intentions, the market reaction to the judiciary panel approving the legislation was muted—shares in big tech companies in fact rose after investors found the House proposal to be no real threat,” the report notes. “Paul Pelosi, who bought 4,000 shares of Alphabet on June 18 (as revealed in a financial disclosure signed by Nancy Pelosi and filed on July 2), made an initial $4.8 million gain from Alphabet’s rising share price, and has since seen his gain grow to $5.3 million.”
Critics of the Pelosis’ also note the the power couple’s improbable win streak on stock bets, raising the specter of major financial corruption and ethics violations on the part of the most powerful member of the House of Representatives.
“In fact, Paul is so good that there’s an app that allows the public to follow his stock trades,” The Hill’s Joe Concha writes. “And for good reason: The Pelosis’ reported net worth is more than $114 million, according to OpenSecrets.org. Per a Business Insider report, ‘a vast majority of the couple’s wealth is derived from stocks, options, and investments made by Paul Pelosi’.”
Furthermore, similar to the so-called “Investment Reduction Act,” the CHIPS Act is loaded with pork-filled goodies for the Democrats’ political allies.
According to a statement from the House Freedom Caucus, a conservative Republican congressional caucus, CHIPS “not only adds $79 billion to the deficit, but also is loaded crony capitalist handouts, Green New Deal climate initiatives, and radical ‘woke’ policies. Worse still, its passage in the Senate – with the help of 17 Senate Republicans– has opened the door for even more out-of-control spending in the Democrats reconciliation deal with $400 billion in spending for liberal priorities and some $700 billion in tax increases.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s communist pedigree may run deep, but when it comes to crony corporatism, she’s undoubtedly one of the best in the business.
Current Founder, CEO and Chief Editor of Becker News. Former Writer & Associate Producer at Fox News for #1 top-rated prime-time cable news show. Former Director of Viral Media and Senior Managing Editor for award-winning startup website IJReview, which grew to a readership of 20-30 million Americans a month. Led editorial and social media team that was #1 ranked news & politics publisher on Facebook for story engagement. Writer whose thousands of digital articles have been read by over 100 million unique users.