Amidst escalating tensions with Beijing, @SecPompeo's delivered a speech at @NixonLibrary.
Titled “Communist China & the Free World’s Future”, the speech is an important landmark in U.S.-China bilateral ties.
Selected by our editors, this thread features Pompeo's direct quotes.
Titled “Communist China & the Free World’s Future”, the speech is an important landmark in U.S.-China bilateral ties.
Selected by our editors, this thread features Pompeo's direct quotes.
"Just this week we closed down China's consulate in Houston because it was a hub of spying and IP [intellectual property] theft" - @SecPompeo
"Today we sit wearing masks and watching the pandemic’s body count rise because the CCP failed in its promises... reading new headlines of repression in Hong Kong and Xinjiang...seeing staggering statistics of Chinese trade abuses that cost American jobs..." - @SecPompeo
"...watching the Chinese military grow stronger and more menacing...Is this China’s definition of a “win-win” situation? Is America safer?" - @SecPompeo
"The old paradigm of blind engagement with China has failed. We must not continue it. We must not return to it." - @SecPompeo
"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 fed it...We marginalized our friends in Taiwan, which later blossomed into a vigorous democracy." - @SecPompeo
"We gave the Chinese Communist regime special economic treatment...only to see the CCP insist on silence over its human rights abuses as the price of admission for Western companies in China." - @SecPompeo
“The ultimate ambition of China’s rulers isn’t to trade with the United States. It is to raid the United States.” - @SecPompeo quoting Attorney General William Barr
"China ripped off our prized intellectual property and trade secrets. It sucked supply chains away from America, and then added a widget of slave labor. It made the world’s key waterways less safe for international commerce." - @SecPompeo
"Perhaps we were naïve about China’s virulent strain of Communism, or triumphalist after the Cold War, or cravenly capitalist, or hoodwinked by Beijing’s talk of a “peaceful rise.” - @SecPompeo
"Whatever the reason, China today is increasingly authoritarian at home, and more aggressive in its hostility to freedom abroad. President Trump has said: enough." - @SecPompeo
"...the CCP regime is a Marxist-Leninist regime. General Secretary Xi Jinping is a true believer in a bankrupt totalitarian ideology. His ideology informs his decades-long desire for global hegemony built on Chinese Communism." - @SecPompeo
"We can no longer ignore the fundamental political and ideological differences between our countries, just as the CCP has never ignored them." - @SecPompeo
"The only way to truly change Communist China is to act on the basis of what its leaders do, not what they say. President Reagan dealt with the Soviets on the basis of 'trust but verify.' When it comes to the CCP, I say, 'Distrust and verify.'" - @SecPompeo
"...trading with China is not like trading with a normal, law-abiding nation. Beijing treats international agreements as suggestions, as conduits for global dominance." - @SecPompeo
"We know now that doing business with a CCP-backed company is not the same as doing business with, say, a Canadian company. They don’t answer to independent boards or pursue profit. @Huawei is an excellent example." - @SecPompeo
"We have stopped pretending @Huawei is an innocent telecommunications company. We have called it what it is – a national security threat – and taken action accordingly." - @SecPompeo
"We know now that not all Chinese students and employees are normal students or workers, pursuing knowledge for themselves – some of them are garnering it, through study or theft, for the benefit of the CCP or its proxies." - @SecPompeo
"We know now that the People’s Liberation Army is not a normal army. Its purpose is to uphold the absolute rule of the Chinese Communist Party elites, and expand a Chinese
empire, not protect the Chinese people." - @SecPompeo
empire, not protect the Chinese people." - @SecPompeo
"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." - @SecPompeo
"This isn’t about containment. It’s about a complex new challenge we’ve never faced before: The USSR was closed off from the free world. Communist China is already here, within our borders." - @SecPompeo
