Pelosi asserts that US and Chinese leaders lack 'shared values'

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) asserted that “we have to find an accommodation” in terms of the ways in which the United States and China treat each other, according to a report from Breitbart News.

The former speaker of the House made her comments during an interview released by Bloomberg on Thursday in which she admitted that while China is awful on security, the economy, and human rights, she still asserts that the United States should make some concessions to make diplomacy work.

“We have a shared planet, and we have to work with the Chinese to save the planet, because they’re now, I think, the biggest emitter, if not us, they’re second, and they are part of the solution in all of this," Pelosi said.

She did clarify that we shouldn’t reward China per se but should have the ability to discuss global issues. Pelosi said, “China’s a big country, and so are we. And we have to find an accommodation on how we treat each other. But, in terms of the three things I named."

The Congresswoman's Claims

"Security, China has been a violator of transferring technology of weapons of mass destruction to rogue countries, A. B, in terms of economics, they’ve been — violated almost every trade standard of access, of piracy, of obeying…rules and the rest," Pelosi said.

"And in terms of governance…Hong Kong, Tibet, Uyghurs, threat to Taiwan, and the rest. So, we don’t have shared values ... we have to work with the Chinese to save the planet, because they’re now, I think, the biggest emitter, if not us, they’re second, and they are part of the solution in all of this," she went on.

Pelosi also stated that she has “been a strong critic of China in so many respects," including on issues of security, economics, and governance.

"Still, we have to work together in certain areas and we have to find those," Pelosi said. "I don’t think we find them by rewarding them. I think we find them by mutual discussion about how we can go forward.”

Beijing's Reaction

Pelosi provoked a furious response from Beijing when she became the first U.S. House speaker to visit Taiwan in nearly three decades last year, as Bloomberg reported.

Her trip was followed by the People's Liberation Army conducting unprecedented military exercises around the 23 million-person island, including the launch of missiles.

Pelosi’s remarks “are a distortion and miscalculation of China’s policy toward the U.S. and are not aligned with the facts,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said following Pelosi's comments at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

He added that Beijing anticipated Washington would “jointly steer China-US relations back on the track of stable development,” he added.

Amid indications of financial turmoil in China, Pelosi has stated that she did not take pleasure in the country's weakening economy due to the human toll.

“Money really has been a sad factor in all of this,” Pelosi said. “Corporate America has said mostly we don’t care about human rights.”