Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mocked China’s professed support for “openness and globalization” Monday while defending President Trump’s new tariff policy.
“Chinese leaders over these past few weeks have been [touting] openness and globalization, but it’s a joke,” Pompeo told the Detroit Economic Club. “Let’s be clear: It’s the most predatory economic government that operates against the rest of the world today.”
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That was part of a broadside against China’s economic policy, especially intellectual property theft and the requirement that companies hand over their proprietary technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market. But he also hinted the clashes are part of a fundamental competition between the U.S. and Chinese systems of government.
“Frankly, some of the most successful economies today haven’t adopted our model; but, I am confident that they will,” Pompeo said. “They will do so because capitalism and the dynamic nature of America is essential to economic success. And you can avoid that for a little while but at the end of the day, the dynamism, the creativity, the innovation that follow from that can only happen in a political environment that is like ours — with fairness and opportunity for every individual to become a success.”
He didn’t name China at that juncture, but quickly grew more specific when talking about how emerging economies would develop, particularly in Africa. “There are places where we believe we can be successful helping them climb quickly,” Pompeo said. “I am confident that that growth will occur with a model that looks more like the West than China … [Chinese investment] money is coming at a price that they know isn’t about commerce and markets, but rather about ultimately calling the note when it’s time to exert political influence.”
Pompeo didn’t pull any punches when talking about how the communist power has made swift technological advances in recent decades.
“It’s an unprecedented level of larceny,” he said. “So they’re not just taking it by forced technology transfer or stealing it by way of contract, but outright theft.”
The elimination of such unfair trade is a necessity for domestic reasons, Pompeo said, adding that “with $21 trillion in debt, there is an enormous amount of economic growth that we need in order to sustain our way of life.” But Pompeo also pointed to the foreign policy significance of the competition as well.
“Chinese investment, too, around the world, it’s welcome but we need to make sure that it doesn’t come with terms that advantage China,” he said. “To the extent they engage in behavior that American business would never engage in, that is, using investment to exert political influence and control over rival nations, American diplomacy has an obligation to do our best to respond to it.”
