ZCZC
BFF-58
US-CHINA-DIPLOMACY
Pompeo warns Europeans against ‘rogue actor’ China
WASHINGTON, June 19, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo on Friday warned Europeans they are abandoning democracy if
they embrace China, in a scathing denunciation of Beijing two days
after he held talks on trans-Pacific friction.
“There’s also no way to straddle these alternatives without
abandoning who we are. Democracies dependent on authoritarians are not
worthy of the name,” Pompeo told a forum in Denmark by
videoconference.
Pompeo was speaking publicly for the first time since meeting for
nearly nine hours Wednesday in Hawaii with a top Chinese official,
Yang Jiechi, on the soaring tensions between the United States and
China.
In his speech, Pompeo indicated that the meeting did little to
change his hawkish views on China, which he called a “rogue actor” on
the world stage.
He renewed calls on Europeans to shun Chinese telecom giant Huawei,
which he called the arm of the communist “surveillance state,” and
said Beijing was “flagrantly attacking sovereignty” through its port
investments in Greece and Spain.
“We must take off the golden blinders of economic ties and see that
the China challenge isn’t just at the gates — it’s in every capital,”
he said.
“Every investment from a Chinese state-owned enterprise should be
viewed with suspicion.”
BSS/AFP/MRU/2250hrs