A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., criticized U.S. Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Wednesday over the tough-on-China policy proposals she unveiled this week.
Haley gave a major foreign policy speech on Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute. She accused the CCP of “killing Americans” by failing to combat the production and trade of chemicals needed to make fentanyl. The synthetic opioid was responsible for nearly 80,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. last year, according to preliminary data from the U.S. government.
Haley, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said if elected president, she would revoke China’s permanent normal trade relations status until it cracked down on the chemical supply.
She also said she would push American companies to leave China.
“If we rally now, the Chinese Communist Party will eventually end up on the ash heap of history, like the Soviet Communist Party,” Haley said in her remarks.
Liu Pengyu blasted Haley’s speech in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday.
“Pushing American companies to leave China runs counter to economic laws and will ultimately harm everyone’s interests,” the spokesman said.
“Only those who draw attention by smearing and blame-shifting in the election campaign will end up on the ash heap of history,” he added.
Haley shot back: “If the Chinese Communists stopped sending fentanyl across our border, robbing our businesses, spying on us, and militarily threatening our friends, then we would have a much better relationship.”
The truth hurts, @SpoxCHNinUS.
If the Chinese Communists stopped sending fentanyl across our border, robbing our businesses, spying on us, and militarily threatening our friends, then we would have a much better relationship. https://t.co/xslXUWyZBG
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) June 28, 2023
Haley laid out her plan to take on the CCP on Tuesday and criticized former president Donald Trump for not doing enough to counter the Chinese threat.
“President Donald Trump deserves credit for upending this bipartisan consensus. He made both parties take off their blinders. Despite the divisions in our politics today, both parties are now more clear-eyed about the Chinese threat than they have been in a very long time. That’s a good thing,” she said, but added that Trump was “almost singularly focused on our trade relationship with China” and “did too little about the rest of the Chinese threat.”
Among her ideas are to ban all propaganda centers and eliminate federal funding for U.S. universities that take Chinese money, block Chinese purchases of American companies specializing in advanced technology, strengthen military ties to Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, and the Philippines, and to “get Europe to recognize that China threatens it as much as us.”
Haley is currently in fourth place among the crowded GOP field, according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls. Trump is the frontrunner with 52.1 percent support, followed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis at 21.5 percent, former vice president Mike Pence at 5.8 percent, and Haley at 3.6 percent.