OAN’s Brooke Mallory
12:53 PM – Sunday, July 2, 2023
On Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley warned of China’s increased military aggression, claiming the nation is ahead of the U.S. in the most important aspects.
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The former South Carolina governor criticized the Biden administration for pursuing a “woke” agenda for the U.S. military while China is “preparing for war” on Fox News Sunday. She asserted that a responsible U.S. administration would do everything they could to try and stop China’s economic and military rise.
“China has been preparing for war with us for decades. And the way we have to deal with China is [to] not look at it tomorrow, because if we keep waiting to deal with them tomorrow, they will deal with us today,” Haley said.
“If you look at the military situation, they now have the largest naval fleet in the world. They have 340 ships, we have 293. They’re going to have 400 In two years, we won’t even have 350 in two decades. They have started developing hypersonic missiles. We’re just now getting started. They are modernizing their military, our military’s taking gender pronoun classes,” she continued. “Look at what they’re doing on cyber, artificial intelligence, space – they’re ahead of us.”
Haley has been a frequent advocate of pushing the United States towards facing Chinese threats more aggressively. In a speech last week, the former UN ambassador stated that China is the “most dangerous foreign threat we’ve faced since World War II.”
She went on to explain China’s economic assault on American territory, stating that she would stop China from mass-purchasing farmland in the United States. She also stated that, if necessary, she will terminate normal commercial connections with China in order to stop the flow of fentanyl across the U.S.-Mexico border.
“China is much more than a mere ‘competitor.’ Communist China is an enemy,” she said. “We have to stop wasting time.”
Haley is presently polling at 3% in the Republican presidential primary for the 2024 election, but she stated on Sunday that she believes those numbers will shift in her favor by fall.
“We can look at past presidential elections and understand that national polls just don’t matter right now,” she said when pressed on the topic. “I mean, we’ve got a debate in August. We’ve got a debate in September. We’ve got a debate in October. I have qualified to be on the debate stage. Having been 3% in a five-way governor’s race, I know that this is all about hard work.”
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