Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said United States leadership should’ve done more to recognize the growing global threat of the Chinese Communist Party.
In an interview with Mark Levin on Sunday on Fox News’s Life, Liberty, and Levin, Pompeo discussed the Trump administration’s approach to foreign policy with a focus on its adversaries and discussed China’s growing influence.
“I think political leadership has failed the American people in this regard for many, many years, misunderstanding what it was that the Chinese Communist Party has as its intention,” Pompeo said. “In America, sometimes we discount these things. Just listen to what General Secretary Xi Jinping says, and you can predict and watch what the Chinese actions are likely to be.”
Pompeo credited President Trump in speaking out against China in several ways, including its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. China faced major international criticism over its alleged “cover-up” and spread of disinformation related to COVID-19, which originated in Wuhan last year.
The Trump administration has tried to crack down on the country through the imposition of tariffs, attempts to support pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, and recent sanctions China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang over accusations of its widespread abuses against Uighur Muslims.
Pompeo also disagreed with how the U.S. has handled its relationship with China since President Richard Nixon first opened up trade with the country in the 1970s.
“We were pushing back against essentially 50 years of U.S. policy with respect to China, since Nixon and Kissinger had gone to Beijing back in the early 1970s, where there was the theory of the case was if we just do more business with them, if we open up, they’ll become less hostile, less hegemonic in their desires and less authoritarian internally. That failed,” Pompeo said.
Pompeo added that the first step to combat China is to discuss its threat openly, a move he believes the administration has been successful in doing.
“We have now begun to build out this global coalition to push back,” Pompeo said. “It will take years. We sat on this for five decades. It will take years to accomplish this, but we have turned the corner. I believe that the tide has turned in terms of the recognition of the threat that this authoritarian regime in China presents.”
Heading into the November election, Pompeo said he’s hopeful to continue the policies the administration has pushed toward China. But if Trump is not reelected, he said he hopes the next administration will continue recognizing its threat.
“I hope if there’s a new administration, whether that’s four years from now or four months from now, this threat will be taken in the same level of seriousness and they are prepared for what may well be short-term costs for the American people and some risk to confront what is a long-term challenge to our fundamental way of life here in the United States,” he said.
