WASHINGTON (US) – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took potshots at China on Thursday saying the US and its allies should use “more creative and assertive ways” to pressure the Chinese Communist Party to change its ways.
While speaking at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda in California, Pompeo said former president Richard Nixon’s concern about his act of opening the world to China’s Communist Party in the 70s was prophetic.
“President Nixon once said he feared he had created a ‘Frankenstein’ by opening the world to the CCP,” he said. “And here we are.”
Through a series of contacts, Nixon, who was in office from 1969 to 74, paved the way for the establishment of diplomatic ties with China in 1979. He himself visited Beijing in 1972.
Pompeo urged for an end to “blind engagement” with China and referred to allegations of China’s unfair trade practices, human rights abuses and efforts to infiltrate American society.
He said the approach to China should be “distrust and verify”, adding that its military had become “stronger and more menacing”. The same approach was followed by Ronald Reagan while dealing with the USSR in the 1980s.
“The truth is that our policies – and those of other free nations – resurrected China’s failing economy, only to see Beijing bite the international hands that were feeding it,” Pompeo said.
“The freedom-loving nations of the world must induce China to change … in more creative and assertive ways, because Beijing’s actions threaten our people and our prosperity.”
He said it was time for “a new alliance of democracies,” adding that “if the free world doesn’t change, Communist China will surely change us.”
According to Pompeo, “securing our freedoms from the Chinese Communist Party is the mission of our time”.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field