Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his department are stepping up attacks on China over human rights abuses in the country and the handling of the coronavirus, the spikes that emerge when observers around the world are outraged by Beijing’s treatment of pro-democracy protesters and Uighur Muslims.
They also come during an election year and as President Trump struggles to defend his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The attacks are not new, but they represent a sharp message about China from an administration whose messages about the nation have ranged from harsh condemnation to gushing praise. They have ranged from hitting China for withholding information about the coronavirus to warnings directed at US companies about working with Chinese brands due to the use of forced labor; from the warnings about China’s actions in Hong Kong to the conviction of committing “the stain of the century” of human rights violations.
There have also been more general attacks, such as an ominous Sunday night tweet from the official State Department account.
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“@SecPompeo: We are seeing the world unite to understand the threat of the Chinese Communist Party,” the statement read.
Pompeo, in a couple of recent speeches, has also taken explicit photos in China.
“China in particular is aggressively promoting a very different concept in which national priorities of various kinds take precedence over basic rights of expression, assembly, religious freedom and free elections,” Pompeo said Thursday in a speech on the efforts of the State Department on “inalienable rights”.
Pompeo made similar comments at the Family Leadership Summit the following day in Iowa.
“And within China, just to give a single example, a few weeks ago I read a report on the Chinese Communist Party forcing mass abortions and sterilization of Chinese Muslims in western China,” he said. “These are some of the most serious human rights violations we have seen and I have referred to them as the blot of the century.”
He added: “We have called for China’s war on faith. Their massive arrest of Uighurs, their ungodly decisions to replace the exhibits of the Church of the Ten Commandments with words of Secretary General Xi have not passed without being called.”
Despite recent tough talks, the administration appears to take a hodgepodge of positions to criticize China, often depending on the issue. Trump has criticized China for taking advantage of the United States in trade deals since the 2016 campaign. But he often praised Chinese President Xi Jinping himself.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has maintained a consistent message against China’s claims in the South China Sea during the Trump administration, regularly executing freedom of navigation operations with U.S. Navy ships, but Trump himself He drove Republicans insane last fall when he congratulated Xi on his country’s 70th anniversary, avoiding any criticism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
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The Trump administration has tried to hinder Chinese-controlled tech company Huawei from global 5G networks, something in which it has just won a major victory with the United Kingdom that recently decided to freeze Huawei from its 5G infrastructure. But Trump, according to a memoir by his former national security adviser John Bolton, had indicated that he personally did not care about China’s crackdown on ethnic minorities, specifically Muslim Uighurs.
“At the opening dinner of the Osaka G20 meeting, with only interpreters present, Xi explained to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang. According to our interpreter, Trump had said that Xi should go ahead with construction. of the camps, that he thought was exactly the right thing, “Bolton said. “[Deputy National Security Advisor Matt] Pottinger told me that Trump said something very similar during the 2017 trip to China, which means that we could remove Uighur repression from our list of possible reasons to sanction China, at least as long as the trade negotiations continue. “
Trump and those in his administration have repeatedly condemned Bolton and his book, denying many of the charges it contains.
Now, amid continuing consequences of the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, with Trump angrily shifting blame from the virus to China, where it originated, Pompeo and the State Department are rhetorically pressing China with renewed vigor.
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“Countries that want to be global powers, countries that want to participate on the global stage, have a corresponding obligation to fulfill the promises they make. China made a promise to the World Health Organization. There is a set of rules on disclosure, and when you have an incident in your country that could lead to a pandemic, you have an obligation to report it and allow others to come in and receive it, “Pompeo said in a video tweeted last week that he was originally on The Hill’s” Virtually Live “.
The United States withdrew from the World Health Organization for its alleged compliance with China by covering up the coronavirus in its early stages.
Pompeo added: “The Chinese Communist Party chose differently, co-opted the World Health Organization to achieve that cover-up, and the result today is that we have hundreds of thousands of people who have died and billions of dollars in global damage as a consequence. direct result. “
Trump reached a similar point in an interview with “Fox News Sunday”.
“It came from China. They should never have let him out. They should never have let him out,” he said.
Later, Trump continued, “World Health was very wrong. They basically did what China wanted. And now we will save almost $ 500 million a year, which is good. But World Health was very wrong.”
Meanwhile, China has backtracked on the diplomatic war of words, accusing the United States of mistreating the coronavirus and even at one point falsely accusing the US Army of introducing the virus into China.
“The #US politicizes the # COVID19 response at home and uses ‘attacking China’ as a panacea for domestic problems. In #Wockof you find a #HouseofCards in real life, with people’s lives at stake,” he said. Hua Chunying, spokesperson for the country. Foreign Ministry said in a tweet last week.
It is unclear where relations between the United States and China could go from this increasingly hostile juncture, with another major trade deal, cooperation in North Korea or reconciliation over geopolitical claims in East Asia that seem increasingly unlikely. But any kind of military conflict still seems overblown, and neither nation seems ready to institute new tariffs on the other: Private companies in both countries continue to work in the other, and American companies like the NBA are still reluctant to recognize even China. . human rights abuses, let alone take action or make statements about it.
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For now, eye-for-eye sanctions appear to be as far away as any country will go, with Trump signing the Hong Kong Autonomy Law this month, a bill to sanction Chinese entities that have helped erode freedoms that once They enjoyed in Hong Kong and financial institutions that do business with them. The executive branch also announced sanctions regarding the oppression of Uighur Muslims.
Meanwhile, China sanctioned some American people, including Republicans Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Cruz, a close ally of the administration, echoed Pompeo’s rhetoric in his response.
“Unfortunately for the CCP leaders, I have no plans to travel to the authoritarian regime that covered up the coronavirus pandemic and endangered millions of lives around the world,” Cruz said in a statement that also condemned the “horrible forced abortions and sterilizations.” “of the Uighur Muslims.
Fox News’ Sam Dorman contributed to this report.
