U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a media interview on Friday (September 4) that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aspires to global hegemony. He said the Communist Party’s model today is to create vassal states, as it has historically done, and have other countries pay tribute to Beijing as the central kingdom. Pompeo also accused China of bullying its neighbors and violating international law when he announced new restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the United States on Tuesday.
Secretary Pompeo was interviewed Friday morning on The Hugh Hewitt Show. The State Department released the text of the question and answer interview.
In the interview, Pompeo criticized China for the serious deterioration of basic human rights for Uighurs, Tibetans, and even Mongols under the rule of Xi Jinping, the Communist Party’s general secretary. He said that China’s increased troop presence along the China-India border shows its desire for global hegemony.
He continued: “Looking outside, you see what is happening today between India and China, the Chinese Communist Party is deploying more soldiers to the border, the most troops there since the early 1960’s. They have triggered a tremendous surge in other countries in Southeast Asia. They’re causing huge problems for other countries in Southeast Asia and affecting their ability to just exercise their basic rights in their own exclusive economic zones. This is a Communist China that conducts authoritarian rule and is deeply eager to impose hegemonic rule around the world.”
Pompeo said that more than 270 Chinese vessels fishing in waters belonging to Ecuador’s special economic zone in the Galapagos Islands is “Chinese predatory economic activity” and, if the data is accurate, a serious violation of international law.
He said, “This is another example, both in Africa and in the predatory activities that take place in Africa, of what the Chinese Communist Party’s model today is doing that has been part of Chinese history for a long time, which is to establish vassal states that treat Beijing as a central kingdom that pays tribute.”
The Secretary of State went on to say that China has a long history of doing this, that it poses a huge risk to the world, and that President Trump realizes the real risk it poses to the United States. He said that the Trump administration is pushing back against China on every front.
On every front, diplomatic and economic, the United States is pushing back,” he said. We are no longer going to bend the knee or be knocked right across the left side of the face. We will ask the Communist Party of China to act in the same way that we ask all other countries to act.”
Pompeo, who announced the new restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the U.S. at a State Department press conference on Sept. 2, also accused China of bullying its immediate neighbors and violating international law, and expressed concern about Chinese actions in Tibet.
In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press conference in Beijing, “Pompeo’s accusations against the Chinese side ignore the facts and pervert black and white, reflecting that some extreme anti-China forces in the United States are doing everything possible to smear and discredit China and deliberately undermine China-U.S. relations and normal exchanges and cooperation between China and the United States.”
In the interview with Hewitt, Pompeo was also asked whether Russia and China’s claims of progress on the development of a new crown vaccine were credible.
He replied, “We see Russia and China rushing to put these vaccines on the market, not to try to get a medical or epidemiological breakthrough, but to get a political and diplomatic breakthrough. That is not in the best interests of the world.”
Pompeo cautioned that if a vaccine is developed that doesn’t work, it could cause further damage and more loss of life. Given the Chinese Communist Party’s cover-up on the virus, he said, he hoped they would not take actions that would further put the world at risk.
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