PRAGE (Reuters) – China’s global economic power is somehow making the communist country a more difficult enemy to face than the Soviet Union during the Cold War, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a visit to the Czech Republic on Wednesday.
Pompeo called on countries in Europe to oppose the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which he said used economic power to exert its influence around the world.
“What is happening now is not Cold War 2.0,” Pompeo said in a speech to the Czech Senate. “The challenge of resisting the CCP threat is somehow much more difficult.”
“The CCP is already embedded in our economies, in our politics, in our societies in ways that the Soviet Union never was.”
The Cold War reference came after China’s ambassador to London last month warned that the United States was embroiled in a battle with Beijing ahead of the US presidential election in November.
U.S.-China ties have rapidly declined this year over a variety of issues, including Beijing’s treatment of the coronavirus; telecom equipment maker Huawei; The territorial claims of China in the South China Sea; and the clampdown on Hong Kong.
Pompeo’s visit to the Czech Republic, part of the Soviet bloc until the democratic Velvet Revolution of 1989, marked the first stop on a swing through the region to discuss cyber and energy security.
He used the opportunity to whip up both Russian and Chinese influence and praised officials in the Central European nation of 10.7 million who took over Beijing last year.
He cited the Czech Republic’s efforts to impose security standards for the development of 5G telecommunications networks, after a government watchdog warned of use of equipment made by Huawei of China.
Pompeo and Prime Minister Andrej Babis signed a statement on 5G security in May, but the country has not taken a direct decision to ban Huawei technology. President Milos Zeman has forged closer ties with China.
Pompeo also acknowledged Czech Senate President Milan Vystrcil, who followed a plan by his late predecessor to visit Taiwan at the end of this month, a trip that angered China.
Pompeo said some peoples in Europe would take longer to wake up to the threats, but there was positive momentum.
The tide has turned (in the United States), just as I see it turning here in Europe as well. The West is winning, let no one tell you about the decline of the West, ”he said.
‘It will take us all … here in Prague, in Poland, in Portugal. We have the obligation to speak clearly and distinctly with our people, and without fear. We have to face complex questions … and we have to do that together, ”he said.
Written by Jan Lopatka; Edited by Michael Kahn, William Maclean
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