Pelosi: China’s Xi ‘acting like a scared bully’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that Chinese President Xi Jinping is behaving like a “scared bully” and is in a “fragile crisis” in the wake of her visit to Taiwan.

“I think that he’s in a fragile crisis … he has problems with his economy. He’s acting like a scared bully,” Pelosi said early Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” when asked what she had learned by Xi’s reaction to trip.

“We met with every Speaker in all five countries, and their members of parliament, so it’s very productive. And in terms of Taiwan, we were not going to take Taiwan off our list because the president of Taiwan has invited us. President of China does not do our schedule,” she added.

Pelosi became the highest-ranking U.S. official in 25 years to visit Taiwan with a stop last week, drawing ire of China, which interprets international leaders’ visits to Taiwan as recognition of the island’s sovereignty, according to The Associated Press. 

Taiwan has been governed separately from the mainland in the decades since the Chinese Civil War, though Beijing still claims the island as its territory.

Since Pelosi’s visit, China has ramped up military drills near the self-governing democratic island, including flying dozens of planes past Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, escalating fears about military confrontation. 

The drills come against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, and Moscow attempts to make inroads in the neighboring country’s south and east regions.