Newt Gingrich (1943), American politician. Born in Harrisburg, pennsylvania, he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1978 and later became the leader of the conservative Republican Party in Congress, ending 42 years of Democratic dominance in the House of Representatives, thus winning the 1995 election to Time magazine Person of the Year [1]. Later, he and President Clinton had a fierce budget conflict, and supported the impeachment of the president in the Lewinsky case, resigned after losing the 1998 midterm elections, and participated in the presidential race in 2012, announcing his withdrawal halfway.
Newt Gingrich
U.S. House speaker of the House of Representatives Pelosi recently visited Taiwan, causing harm to Sino-US relations and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. Many believe that Pelosi's move carries many political calculations: on the one hand, the US mid-term elections are approaching, and she is trying to gain political capital by provoking China; On the other hand, she also hopes to use this incident to divert attention from the scandal in the United States about her family's use of privileges to speculate in stocks. But such a calculation is likely to be "a bamboo basket to hit the water empty". Twenty-five years ago, the then speaker of the US House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, also staged a farce of visiting Taiwan, but instead of gaining political points, he resigned in disgrace.
Suddenly visited Taiwan
In March 1997, U.S. Vice President Al Gore visited China. On March 27, Gore left Beijing for a foreign visit, and on the same day, Gingrich arrived in Beijing for a visit. On March 30, Gingrich left Shanghai for Japan.
What shocked the international community was that Gingrich visited Taiwan after his trip to Japan. Although Gingrich's visit to Taiwan lasted only 3 hours, it was extremely bad in nature and seriously endangered Sino-US relations. In the meantime, he crossed the lines of U.S. policy and shouted that if Beijing "used force," the United States would stop it by all necessary means. In this regard, the Clinton administration issued a statement saying that Gingrich only "spoke on his own behalf" and did not mean a change in US policy toward Taiwan.
Gingrich's sudden visit to Taiwan has aroused strong dissatisfaction from the Chinese side. After Mr. Gingrich's speech in Taipei, Shen Guofang, then spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, warned the United States to speak with one voice in foreign policy and accused Mr. Gingrich of making inappropriate statements about the United States' commitment to "protect" Taiwan. The New York Times also published an article directly pointing out that Gingrich's remarks on "protecting" Taiwan have crossed the boundaries of US Taiwan policy.
In fact, Kinrich's visit to Taiwan in 1997 was linked to the domestic political struggle in the United States. According to the book "History of Sino-US Relations," after The Re-election of Democratic Clinton as president, the Republican Party could not swallow this breath and vowed to oppose the Democratic Government, so the China policy became a convenient excuse. Against this background, in the first half of 1997, there was a fierce confrontation between the contact and containment factions in the United States, and the Republican conservatives and democratic liberals joined forces to attack the Clinton administration's china contact policy. In 1997, the confrontation between the contactists and containment factions in the United States against China resulted in a narrow victory for the contactists. In May, John Charly kashvili, then chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited China. On June 25, 1998, Clinton arrived in Xi'an for a nine-day official visit to China, his first visit to China since moving into the White House.
From rebellion to resignation
Before the channel, Gingrich once faced the scene of "rebellion and separation". In 1995, Gingrich's approval ratings, which played a key role in "shutting down" the Clinton administration, plummeted. By 1996, nearly three-fifths of voters had a negative view of him. Some of his men even orchestrated a "coup" against him.
The visit to Taiwan apparently did not make Mr. Gingrich score points. Shortly after his return to the United States, several Republican members of the House of Representatives tried to oust him from his position as speaker, arguing that Gingrich's public image was a burden on the Republican Party, but Gingrich died. In 1998, Gingrich was exposed for having an affair with a woman 23 years younger than him. The New York Times sarcastically said in 2016 that Mr. Gingrich later admitted that he had been unfaithful to his two wives, that he had negotiated divorce terms with his first wife, who was hospitalized for cancer at the time, and that he was leading the impeachment of Clinton, who was mired in lewinsky's scandal, while stealing from his second wife.
In the 1998 midterm elections, the Republican Party lost five House seats, the worst performance of a party that has not served as president in 64 years in the midterm elections. After the midterm elections, Republican lawmakers urged Mr. Gingrich to resign as Speaker.
On the cusp of the storm, Gingrich trapped his home in Georgia. The Washington Post said he called dozens of colleagues to assess whether he could survive recent challenges. However, many did not respond to his calls. To make matters worse, Kimridge's old friend and ally Bob Livingston announced that he would challenge Gingrich for the speakership. In this case, Gingrich had to give up his position as Speaker of parliament, and in January 1999, he announced his resignation.
Gingrich has repeatedly tried to return to the political arena. He ran for president in 2012 but failed in the Republican primary, where he supported Trump's presidential campaign during the 2016 election. After Trump's election, some media speculated that Gingrich might become secretary of state, but in the end Trump did not choose him.
"Road to Destruction"
U.S. media commentator Jonathan Chartreuse wrote in New York magazine that Gingrich was "obsessed with convicting his opponents, both real and imagined." Gingrich led a campaign to topple Democratic-born House Speaker Jim Wright with moral accusations. As a result of his success in forcing Wright to resign, Gingrich's influence in the Republican parliamentary caucus grew, and in March 1989 he became the House Minority Whip.
In the House of Representatives, Gingrich has accused 10 Democrats of breaking the law and being disloyal to the United States. In 1991, he hinted that Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee were leaking intelligence to jeopardize national security. After Clinton came to power in 1993, Gingrich spared no effort to attack the Clinton administration. He accused Clinton and other Democrats of corruption, illegal financing and covering up the truth. He claimed that as many as 1/4 of the Clinton White House staff used drugs illegally. He later admitted that he had forced the government to shut down in retaliation for Clinton's disrespect for him on Air Force One.
The Washington Post once commented: "Gingrich has put us on the road to destruction." During his 4 years as Speaker of the House of Representatives, he committed many barbaric acts: treating his opponents as criminals, non-Americans, and inferiors; Use shocking language; Fierce attacks on the media; Disrupt the functioning of governments and organizations. Gingrich pioneered the practice of refusing to negotiate, which created a hopeless impasse and dysfunction for the U.S. political system.
There is only one China in the world, and no political task can change the determination of the Chinese people!