Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Maochun Yu pose for a photo. (Courtesy of the U.S. Department of State)
In an exclusive interview with the Central News Agency on March 25, Yu Maochun, a China Policy think tank for former U.S. President Donald Trump‘s administration, revealed that the U.S.-China talks were a plea from the Chinese side for the U.S. side to hold them, and that the performance of top Chinese Communist Party officials who openly choked during the talks with the U.S. side reflected Beijing‘s dashed hopes for the new U.S. administration, and that the Chinese Communist Party would only become more isolated internationally if it did not change course. Yu Maochun also praised Taiwan as a model of democracy.
Yu, who served as the State Department’s chief China policy adviser under former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left the Trump Administration in January and joined Pompeo at the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
China’s “spill” diplomacy fails in plea for talks
Before last week’s U.S.-China Alaska talks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, “China was invited to hold a high-level strategic dialogue with U.S. officials.”
Yu Maochun pointed out in an interview with the Central News Agency that the talks held in Alaska last week were a plea from the Chinese side to the U.S. side, and that Beijing’s main goal was to get the Biden administration to reverse the entire policy toward China under the former Trump administration, because they felt “China was not at fault at all, but it was all a few people inside the Trump administration who were messing up.
Yu Maochun said that a few weeks before the talks, Beijing had recognized that hopes of reversing U.S. policy toward China had been dashed because the Biden Administration had largely continued the Trump administration’s policies, including close liaison with the European Union and the Five Eyes Alliance countries on key issues such as Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, trade and security in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
He said Beijing felt its hopes were dashed and became angry, trying to use the Alaska talks to “spill the beans” and achieve a domestic publicity effect by scolding the United States. He said that Yang Jiechi, the director of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the CPC Central Committee, had “changed from his old image of being gentle and frugal to being a War Wolf” at the talks, no doubt at the behest of Xi Jinping.
Yu Maochun believes that the U.S.-China quarrel is not a bad thing. He explained that the scandal caused by China’s emotional outburst in Alaska not only shows the failure of Chinese diplomacy, but also educates thousands of Americans and many other countries that “those people who used to have some illusions about the Chinese Communist Party are no longer illusions”.
“U.S. policy toward China will not change Communism has no way out”
When it comes to the future of U.S.-China relations, Yu Maochun said that if Beijing’s behavior does not change, the U.S. policy toward China will basically not change, regardless of which party is in the White House; the Biden administration, like the former Trump administration, is willing to engage with the Chinese Communist Party, but the direction of the relationship after the engagement, again, depends entirely on the behavior of the Chinese Communist Party itself.
Yu Maochun said that the American people’s new understanding of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule and the nature of U.S.-China relations will be a very powerful cornerstone and driving force for U.S. foreign policy. In addition, the U.S. Congress, which reflects public opinion, is largely unanimous in its views on the CCP, and there is a high degree of consistency in the relevant laws passed against China over the past few years, “and any U.S. president, regardless of party, has to respect this reality.”
Therefore, Yu Maochun has high hopes for the continuity and vitality of the China policy formulated during Trump’s presidency.
Yu pointed out that China should abandon Leninist-style thinking and instead compete with the European Union, the United States and other countries around the world in a peaceful, calm and rule-based manner. This includes ensuring fair trade and stopping the theft of Western industrial secrets and military secrets.
Yu Maochun emphasized that competing in recognition of international rules is the right way forward; if the Chinese Communist Party does not abide by these rules, it will become more isolated in the world.
He also said that communism is an illusory promise that does not make sense in theory and is even more broken in practice, and therefore has no future in China. He said that the Chinese people know this, and many in the Communist Party know it, but no one has the courage and guts to pierce the reality that The Emperor has no clothes on.
“Taiwan is a model of democracy”
Yu Maochun said that the success of Taiwan’s democratic transformation has a huge relationship with the people’s efforts and the quality of democracy. Taiwan is a very healthy society and a model of democracy, he said, and “the Chinese circle should all learn from Taiwan.”
He noted that the U.S. defense commitment to Taiwan is not only to protect Taiwan and stop the expansion of Chinese Communist power overseas, but more importantly to defend the ideas and values that Taiwan represents and the very valuable democratic achievements of the Taiwanese people, which, he said, “are tied to the fate of the United States.”
In an interview with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who lifted years of restrictions on U.S.-Taiwan relations 11 days before he left office on Jan. 20, Yu revealed that he was not only involved in the decision-making process, but also “very involved.
Yu Maochun said the decision involves a major policy of the U.S. government, “not Yu Maochun, Pompeo two people can do this,” but to refer to the views of many people. He said the decision is the right one and reflects a realistic change in the current U.S. policy toward China, Taiwan and the entire diplomatic cornerstone.
Yu also noted that the issue of how the U.S. policy toward Taiwan should be revised and whether the U.S. “one-China policy” might change is “more complicated. But he stressed that the first thing the United States must do is to respect the will of the Taiwanese people; the vast majority of public opinion in Taiwan is not to unify with China, but to maintain the status quo, and the U.S. side must respect this reality. In addition, the United States calls Taiwan an ally, we must really treat Taiwan as an ally to treat.
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