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Gallagher: China and Russia's Authoritarian Alliance is Feature of New Cold War

March 15, 2022

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) today joined Fox and Friends to discuss Ukrainian President Zelesnskyy's upcoming address to Congress and Russia and China's authoritarian alliance. Click hereto watch the full interview, or read highlights from the conversation below.

On what he'd like Zelenskyy to say in his address to Congress:

"I think Zelenskyy can go a long way towards inspiring the West to continue to provide lethal assistance, which is going to get more difficult as the Russians escalate. They've reportedly started attacking supply lines near the Polish border. And that's why we can't flinch and we can't back down in the face of Russian pressure. I would like Zelenskyy to lay out exactly what he needs, talking in particular about the role that those Polish MIG 29 could have played in allowing him to stand up to Russia. The other thing I'd like him to address, and I don't know if he'll go there, is the role that China is playing in all of this, in supporting Russia's slaughter in Ukraine."

On Russia and China's authoritarian alliance:

"The Biden administration needs to stop playing footsie with the Chinese right now, because they're trying to portray themselves as peacemakers. But behind the scenes, they're standing by their man in Moscow. And the harder this gets for Putin, the more dependent he's going to become on China, both as a destination for weapons supplies, as well as energy sales. We need to call out the role that the Chinese are playing here. This alliance among authoritarian states is a feature of the New Cold War that China has launched against America. The sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can win the new Cold War."

On the need to play by the rules of hard power:

"We assumed that Putin would play by the rules of the 21st century or abide by the norms that we abide by. That's not the way a KGB thug like Putin operates. We need to stop projecting our value structure onto evil authoritarians, like Putin or Xi Jinping, or we're going to continue to be surprised when they invade countries despite us threatening sanctions in response. They play by the rules of hard power. That is the world they live in. And we need to understand that's the world that we live in on the international stage."