[D66] Kung flu

[R.O.]

Yeah, bomb it...


  Pompeo urges more assertive approach to 'Frankenstein' China

By
David BrunnstromDaphne Psaledakis
reuters.com
4 min
View Original 
<https://getpocket.com/redirect?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2Fus-usa-china-pompeo%2Fpompeo-urges-more-assertive-approach-to-frankenstein-china-idUSKCN24O310>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took fresh 
aim at China on Thursday and said Washington and its allies must use 
“more creative and assertive ways” to press the Chinese Communist Party 
to change its ways, calling it the “mission of our time.”

Speaking at the Nixon Library in President Richard Nixon’s birthplace in 
Yorba Linda, California, Pompeo said the former U.S. leader’s worry 
about what he had done by opening the world to China’s Communist Party 
in the 1970s had been prophetic.

“President Nixon once said he feared he had created a ‘Frankenstein’ by 
opening the world to the CCP,” Pompeo said. “And here we are.”

Nixon, who died in 1994 and was president from 1969-74, opened the way 
for the establishment of U.S. diplomatic relations with Communist China 
in 1979 through a series of contacts, including a visit to Beijing in 1972.

In a major speech delivered after Washington’s surprise order this week 
for China to close its Houston consulate, Pompeo called for an end to 
“blind engagement” with China and repeated frequently leveled U.S. 
charges about its unfair trade practices, human rights abuses and 
efforts to infiltrate American society.

He said China’s military had became “stronger and more menacing” and the 
approach to Beijing should be “distrust and verify,” adapting President 
Ronald Reagan’s “trust but verify” mantra about the Soviet Union 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.”

Recalling remarks he made after meeting British leaders in London this 
week, Pompeo said “maybe it’s time for a new grouping of like-minded 
nations, a new alliance of democracies,” while adding: “If the free 
world doesn’t change, Communist China will surely change us.”

Pompeo said “securing our freedoms from the Chinese Communist Party is 
the mission of our time,” and America was perfectly positioned to lead it.

He said one NATO ally, which he did not name, was unwilling to stand up 
for freedom in Hong Kong because it feared restricted access to China’s 
market.

While some conservative commentators praised Pompeo’s speech on social 
media and elsewhere, some other analysts were not impressed.

Scott Kennedy, of Washington’s Center for Strategic and International 
Studies, said cooperation with other democracies on China would be 
easier said than done, given the Trump administration’s record of 
dealing with allies.

“How do you form a united front against China when the U.S. is bullying 
its allies, trashing multilateral institutions and pushing an economic 
decoupling (from China) that no one else supports?” he said.


      LOW POINT

Pompeo’s speech comes at a time when U.S.-China relations have dipped to 
their lowest point in decades and President Donald Trump and his 
Democratic challenger Joe Biden have appeared to compete with each other 
over who can appear toughest towards Beijing ahead of the Nov. 3 
presidential election.

Ties have deteriorated over issues ranging from the novel coronavirus 
pandemic, which began in China, to Beijing trade and business practices, 
its territorial claims in the South China Sea and its clampdown on Hong 
Kong.

In a dramatic escalation, Washington on Tuesday gave China 72 hours to 
close its Houston consulate.

Pompeo said the consulate had been “a hub of spying and intellectual 
property theft.”

China said the U.S. move had “severely harmed” relations and warned it 
“must” retaliate, without detailing what it would do.

The South China Morning Post reported China may close the U.S. consulate 
in the southwestern city of Chengdu, while a source told Reuters on 
Wednesday China was considering shutting the consulate in Wuhan, where 
the United States withdrew staff at the start of the coronavirus outbreak.

Hu Xijin, editor of China’s Global Times tabloid, posted on Twitter: 
“Based on what I know, China will announce countermeasure on Friday 
Beijing time. One U.S. consulate in China will be asked to close.”

Earlier he said shutting the Wuhan consulate would be insufficiently 
disruptive and suggested China could cut U.S. staff at its large 
consulate in Hong Kong, which he called an “intelligence center.”

“This will make Washington suffer much pain,” he wrote.

The other U.S. consulates in China are in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenyang.

China has four other consulates in the United States - in San Francisco, 
Los Angeles, Chicago and New York - as well as an embassy in Washington.

Trump told a news briefing on Wednesday it was “always possible” other 
Chinese missions could be closed too.


Richard Grenell, special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo who 
served until recently as acting director of U.S. national intelligence, 
told Reuters the U.S. strategy was “very much start with one and move on 
to others if need be.”

“The whole goal is to change the behavior of the Chinese... this is 
emerging as the Trump doctrine, which is very harsh actions, sanctions 
and isolation while at the same time always offering a chance to exit if 
the behavior changes.”

Chinese state media editorials said the Houston move was an attempt to 
blame Beijing for U.S. failures ahead of Trump’s reelection bid. Opinion 
polls have shown Trump trailing Biden.


On 30-07-2020 17:15, R.O. wrote:
> (Weer eens wat anders dan covid-19...)
>
> How the Cold War Between China and U.S. Is Intensifying - The New York 
> Times
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/world/asia/us-china-cold-war.html
>
> [...]
> A widening battle over technology
>
> China has long been accused by successive U.S. administrations of 
> stealing American technology. The Trump White House has escalated the 
> accusations further by seeking an international blacklisting of 
> Huawei, China’s largest technology company, calling it a front for 
> China’s efforts to infiltrate the telecommunications infrastructure of 
> other nations for strategic advantage.
>
> The company’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, has been detained 
> in Canada since December 2018 on an extradition warrant to the United 
> States on fraud charges. Last week Britain declared it was siding with 
> the United States in barring Huawei products from its high-speed 
> wireless network.
> _______________________________________________
> D66 mailing list
> D66 at tuxtown.net
> http://www.tuxtown.net/mailman/listinfo/d66
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