China has amassed 60,000 troops on India’s northern border, said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as he attacked Beijing for its “bad behavior” and the threats it poses to the Quad countries.
The foreign ministers of the Indo-Pacific countries known as the Quad group (the United States, Japan, India and Australia) met in Tokyo on Tuesday in what were their first in-person talks since the coronavirus pandemic began.
The meeting took place in the context of China’s aggressive military behavior in the Indo-Pacific, the South China Sea and along the Royal Line of Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.
Read also: ‘The tide has begun to turn’: Pompeo says US and India partner in fight against China
“The Indians are seeing 60,000 Chinese soldiers on their northern border,” Pompeo told The Guy Benson Show in an interview on Friday after his return from Tokyo, where he attended the Quad’s second ministerial meeting with his counterparts from India, Japan. and Australia.
“I was with my foreign minister counterparts from India, Australia and Japan, a format we call Quad, four great democracies, four powerful economies, four nations, each of which has a real risk associated with the threats imposed, trying to be imposed by the Communist Party of China. And they also see it in their countries of origin, ”he said.
Pompeo met with Foreign Minister S Jaishankar in Tokyo on Tuesday and underscored the need to work together to advance peace, prosperity and security in the Indo-Pacific and around the world. He described his encounter with Jaishankar as “productive”. “They see, the people of their nations (Quad) understanding that we all slept in this for a long time. For decades, the West allowed the Communist Party of China to trample us down. The previous administration got down on its knees, too often allowing China to steal our intellectual property and the millions of jobs that accompanied it. They also see that in their country, ”he said in the interview.
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In another interview with Larry O’Connor, Pompeo said in his meetings with his counterparts in Japan, India and Australia, that they began to develop a set of understandings and policies that can lead these countries to work together to put up real resistance to the threats. that the Communist Party of China raises to each of these nations.
“They absolutely need the United States to be their ally and partner in this fight,” he said.
“But everyone has seen it, whether it is the Indians, who are actually having a physical confrontation with the Chinese in the Himalayas in the northeast part of India, the Chinese have now started amassing huge forces against India in the north,” he He said.
India and China have been locked in a bitter border clash in eastern Ladakh since the beginning of May that has significantly strained bilateral ties.
Both sides have held a series of diplomatic and military talks to resolve the dispute. However, no progress has been made to end the confrontation. China tried unsuccessfully to occupy Indian territory on the southern shore of Lake Pangong in the last week of August.
“Whether it’s the Australians who did the simple thing of saying that the Chinese screwed up this deal with the virus, and we would like to understand what happened and we said we should have a full investigation, and in exchange for that, the Chinese communist party started extorting , coerce, intimidate Australians, “said Pompeo.
Each of these countries has seen this, he said, adding that people in each of these countries now understand that the Chinese Communist Party poses a threat to them.
“The world has awakened. The tide has begun to turn. And the United States, under the leadership of President Trump, has now built a coalition that will reject the threat and uphold the good order, the rule of law, and the basic civic decency that comes from the democracies that control the world and not from authoritarian regimes. ”, Pompeo. He said.
In his third interview with Fox News, Pompeo said that the United States under the Trump administration has begun to build the entire building of the structure and the allies and the coalition to push back China.
“Our goal is to protect the American people from the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.
Referring to his Quad ministerial meeting, Pompeo said that the other three countries, Japan, India and Australia were forming a coalition, building partners and allies around the world who understand the threat from the Chinese Communist Party in the same way that “we so that can protect jobs here at home. “
“Look, they have stacked 60,000 soldiers against the Indians in the north. When Australians had the audacity to call for an investigation of the Wuhan virus and where it started, something we know a lot about, the Chinese Communist Party threatened them. They harassed them, “Pompeo told Fox News.
“We need partners and friends. They will certainly try to react. But what the Chinese Communist Party had gotten used to, frankly, for a long time was seeing the United States bend one knee, see us turn the other cheek and appease them, ”he said.
“That only encouraged his bad behavior, his evil activity. Our rejection, they understand that we take it seriously. They have observed that we are going to confront them and impose costs on them. I am sure that this activity, over time, will change the nature of what the Chinese Communist Party tries to do to harm the United States, “Pompeo said.
India is expanding bilateral cooperation with Japan, the United States and Australia in the Indo-Pacific region.
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