Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday he thinks President-elect Donald Trump's decision to speak with the president of Taiwan was "terrific," as he believes the State Department's "mythology that we have to somehow let the Chinese dictate to us is nonsense."
"You have the elected leader of 23 million people," Gingrich told Fox News' "Fox & Friends," of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who initiated the phone call. "This is the third time that they have had a peaceful transfer of power between parties. This is the first woman elected president of any country in Asia who didn't either have a husband or father who is already president.
"She's in her own right a serious leader and if a leader of a free people calls you, so why wouldn't you take the call?"
Officially, there have been no formal diplomatic relations between the United States and Taiwan since 1979, when Beijing claimed Taiwan and its democratically run government is part of China. The policy is called the "One China" plan.
Gingrich on Monday said the call between Trump and Tsai was a "good signal to the world that Donald Trump is going to be his own person," and if China wishes to deal with the United States, "they are going to actually deal with the United States. They are not going to be able to intimidate us."
However, he stressed that does not mean making enemies with the superpower.
"We're not the enemies of China," said the former speaker. "Let's be careful. We don't want to start a Cold War with Beijing. I think we're going to have very tough negotiations and I think we have to try to understand each other, but that means the Chinese have to try to understand as much as we have to try to understand them.
The former speaker, one of Trump's key advisers, said it's important to remember that Trump will seem as if he's "winging it,' but "he's winging within some very core principles," and that includes a "real break with the last 40 years of American diplomacy."
"This is a democracy calling him," said Gingrich. "Somebody who walks in, says, 'Hi, the elected leader of a democracy would like to chat with you.' Somehow it's okay with the State Department to talk to any dictator on the planet, but an elected leader of a democracy, boy, that's really dangerous."
Gingrich said he thinks that means the incoming secretary of State should "spend half their time cleaning out the State Department and the other half their time negotiating with the world."
For years, the United States has been "intimidated" by Beijing, said Gingrich, and has been patient under the theory China would eventually become more democratic, but that hasn't happened.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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