President Joe Biden and Congress must come to terms with a “linked” authoritarian network eager to undermine the United States and impose their will on their neighbors, according to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“These folks want bad things for us,” Pompeo told the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. “They want to undermine that very idea of freedom, here at home. And we have a responsibility to get it right, economically, diplomatically and make sure we have a strong military to defend those, too.”
Pompeo appeared alongside former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta for a bipartisan testimony on the Chinese Communist Party‘s support for U.S. adversaries, and Pompeo emphasized that the “authoritarian alignment” that the committee chose as its theme is a process of give-and-take between regimes that could fuel an eruption of more crises around the world.
“These are not independent strategies,” Pompeo said. “They may be an independent theater, separate theaters, but make no mistake about it: there are Iranian drones going to Russia to kill Ukrainian kids. There’s Russian energy flowing to China. There’s Chinese semiconductors flowing to the Russian defense industry, Iranian oil [flowing] into both Russia and China. These actors are working to undermine the things that matter most to us here at home.”
That message dovetailed with the opening remarks of Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Wisconsin Republican who chairs the committee. “The CCP has become a prime banker and supplier to Russia’s war on Ukraine, and the No. 1 purchaser of Iranian crude, single-handedly neutering America’s sanction regime against its top two targets,” Gallagher said. “What was once a smattering of rogue authoritarians causing trouble today looks a whole lot like an axis led by the Chinese Communist Party.”
Those threats also take shape inside U.S. borders, American policymakers believe. Biden reportedly obtained a promise from Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping during their meeting in November that Beijing “would not interfere in the 2024 U.S. presidential election,” according to CNN. Pompeo, for his part, maintained that Beijing has engaged in long-term “information warfare” targeting the United States through a range of methods — from social media apps on personal cellphones to direct outreach to mayors and other officials below the level of the federal government.
“We should never forget this information space and social media,” Pompeo said. “The Chinese Communist Party has communist-directed entities that are on every one of our children’s cellphones, passing information that is deeply filtered, designed for our young people here to undermine their idea and their understanding of America and our foundational ideas.”
Gallagher and Pompeo both cited the problem of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s decision to provide arms to Russia for the war in Ukraine, but the former secretary of state suggested that the dictator has his own aims in mind.
“We’ve got deterrence lost in Europe. We have deterrence lost in the Middle East. We’re on the cusp of losing that very deterrent model in Asia as well. One could argue the elements of that have already been lost,” Pompeo said. “Chairman Kim — who I spent way too much time with — Chairman Kim has now talked about the absence of any desire for peaceful reunification with the Republic of Korea. That is a change that is important. “
Panetta, like Pompeo, a former CIA director, and who went on to lead the Defense Department under Barack Obama, argued that the deterrence of China would depend to some extent on the perceived outcome of the war in Ukraine.
“Our ability to stand together against Putin and provide support to the Ukrainian warfighters sends a critical message to autocrats considering similar incursions: the United States will stand by its allies and partners; we will make you pay,” he said. “I believe that continued support for Ukraine is key to ensuring that Xi thinks twice about the consequences of attempting an invasion of Taiwan. We simply cannot be tough on China and weak in our support for Ukraine.”
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Pompeo emphasized more broadly that authoritarians are probing the U.S.’s ability to maintain order and stability in the world.
“These are all deeply linked to whether America will have the resolve, determination, and capacity to deter and maintain the order that we have benefited, that Americans have benefited from, since the post-Cold War order was established,” he said. “It’s hard to appreciate that there is evil in the world. That is a staggering confrontation to our way of life.”
