Pompeo calls for international coalition to ‘push back’ against China
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for an international coalition to check China, blasting the Chinese Communist Party’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, aggressive moves in the South China Sea and crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong.
Pompeo said as the world struggles to handle the coronavirus that has infected more than 14 million people globally, Chinese President Xi Jinping is taking advantage of the crisis to advance the country’s interests.
“We’ve seen Hong Kong’s freedoms crushed. We’ve watched the CCP bully its neighbors, militarize features in the South China Sea, and instigate a deadly confrontation with India,” Pompeo said Tuesday during a news conference with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in London.
Pompeo said he and Raab want all nations to “work against that kind of activity.”
“We want every nation to work together to push back against the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts in every dimension that I described to you today,” he said.
“It includes every country. We hope we can build out a coalition that understands this threat, will work collectively to convince the Chinese Communist Party it’s not in their best interest to engage in this kind of behavior,” Pompeo added.
Pompeo singled out Xi personally for using the coronavirus pandemic as cover to pursue the Communist Party’s ambitions.
“We of course began with the challenge presented by the Chinese Communist Party and the COVID-19 virus that originated in Wuhan, China,” he said. “The CCP’s exploitation of this disaster to further its own interests has been disgraceful. Rather than helping the world, General Secretary Xi has shown the world the party’s true face.”
Last week, Attorney General William Barr made similar remarks, calling on the United States and the free world to mount a collective response against the global influence of the Chinese Communist Party.
“How the United States responds to this challenge will have historic implications and will determine whether the United States and its liberal democratic allies will continue to shape their own destiny or whether the CCP and its autocratic tributaries will control the future,” Barr said during a speech at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Thursday.
“The CCP has launched an orchestrated campaign, across all of its many tentacles in Chinese government and society, to exploit the openness of our institutions in order to destroy them. To secure a world of freedom and prosperity for our children and grandchildren, the free world will need its own version of the whole-of-society approach, in which the public and private sectors maintain their essential separation but work together collaboratively to resist domination and to win the contest for the commanding heights of the global economy.”
The Trump administration has blasted Beijing for downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak, leaving the rest of the world unprepared for its deadly onslaught.
President Trump has also called out China for failing to accurately report the number of cases in the country and using its influence with the World Health Organization to minimize the crisis.
The Department of Justice on Tuesday revealed charges against two Chinese hackers who it says attempted to steal coronavirus research from government agencies and private companies.
The two men, according to the indictment, worked with the Chinese Ministry of State Security and the Guangdong State Security Department to conduct a “sweeping global computer intrusion campaign,” it said in a statement.
The US has also ordered China to close its consulate in Houston.
“We have directed the closure of PRC Consulate General Houston, in order to protect American intellectual property and American’s private information,” US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement Wednesday.