Mike Pompeo calls for 'new alliance of democracies' to counter China's aggressive policies

Sharpening his attack on China, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Thursday (local time) said that it is time "for a new alliance of democracies" to counter Beijing's aggressive policies.

"We cannot face this challenge alone. The UN, NATO, the G7, the G20, our combined economic, diplomatic and military power is surely enough to meet this challenge if directed properly. Maybe it is time for a new grouping of like-minded nations...a new alliance of democracies," said Pompeo while speaking on 'Communist China and the Free World's Future' at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library here.

Welcoming the Chinese people who have fought against their government bravely, he said, "We must also engage and empower the Chinese people...a dynamic, freedom-loving people who are completely distinct from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)."

"Communists always lie, but the biggest lie is that the Chinese Communist Party speaks for1.4 billion people who are surveilled, oppressed and scared to speak out," he added.

Pompeo said that the CCP fears the Chinese people's honest opinions more than any foreign foe. "And save for losing their own grip on power, they have no reason to," he noted.

The top US diplomat said that the coronavirus pandemic would not have happened if the doctors in Wuhan were allowed to raise the alarm.

"Just think how much better off the world would have been if the doctors in Wuhan had been allowed to raise the alarm about the outbreak of a new coronavirus. For too many decades, our leaders have ignored or downplayed the words of brave Chinese dissidents who warned us about the nature of the regime we are facing," he said.

Calling for countries to join hands in stopping China's aggressive policies, he said, "I have faith we can do it. I have faith because we have done it before. I have faith because the CCP is repeating some of the same mistakes the Soviet Union made -- alienating potential allies, breaking trust at home and abroad, rejecting property rights and a predictable rule of law."

"It is true that unlike the Soviet Union, China is deeply integrated into the global economy. ButBeijing is more dependent on us than we are on them," the Secretary of State added.

He said that China ripped the US' "prized" intellectual property and trade secrets, sucked supply chains away from America and added a widget made of slave labour.

"It made the world's key waterways less safe for international commerce," Pompeo added.

"We have called on China to conform its nuclear capabilities to the strategic realities of our time," he said.

He said, "It is time for free nations to act. Not every nation will approach the China challenge in the same way, nor should they. Every nation will have to come to its own understanding of how to protect its national security, its economic prosperity and its ideals from the tentacles of the CCP."

He said that "Chinese President Xi Jinping is not destined to tyrannise inside and outside of China forever, unless we allow him".

"One NATO ally of ours won't stand up for freedom in Hong Kong because they fear Beijing will restrict access to China's market. This timidity will harm its people, as such timidity historically has," Pompeo said.

"If we do not act now, ultimately, the CCP will erode our freedoms and subvert the rules-based order that our societies have worked so hard to build," he stated.

"Let us not repeat the same mistakes of the past. The challenge of China demands exertion from democracies... those in Europe, in Africa, in South America, and especially those in the Indo-Pacific region," the top US diplomat stressed. 

-ANI

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