The speech by United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticizing China was an “angry regret” and an “extended ideological speech” that would do little to change Beijing’s behavior, said a former US diplomat in Asia.
Specifically, Pompeo’s apparent attempt to unite the Chinese people against the Communist Party of China is “primitive and ineffective,” which will likely increase support for Chinese President Xi Jinping, said Daniel Russel, who served as undersecretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. from 2013 to 2017.
“This type of complaint (has) the opposite effect, by reinforcing support in China for Xi Jinping and deepening anger towards the United States,” Squawk Box Asia told CNBC on Friday.
“Complaining is not fixing and reporting is not diplomacy,” said Russel, who is now vice president of international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute.
Pompeo delivered a wild speech at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library on Thursday, saying the United States will no longer tolerate Beijing’s playbook to usurp global order and calling on allies to “induce China to change.”
He also called for the commitment and empowerment of the Chinese people, whom he described as “dynamic and freedom-loving people who are completely different from the Chinese Communist Party.”
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a press conference at the State Department in Washington, DC on March 25, 2020.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | fake pictures
Michael Hirson, head of practice for the Eurasia Group for China and Northeast Asia, said the Secretary of State’s statements came as close as possible to calling for a regime change in China. But with the US presidential election coming up, Chinese policy makers are unlikely to react in a way that “fundamentally” changes the relationship of the two countries, he said.
“So, to some extent, they are absorbing these body shots and I think they will wait after the elections to decide where Beijing wants to take this relationship,” Hirson told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Friday.
“At the moment, they are seeing it evolve and they are not prepared to make drastic changes that would change the way Beijing is facing this new challenge from the United States,” he added.
Relations between the US and China, the world’s two largest economies, have been at their worst in decades. In addition to the countries’ ongoing trade war, the two sides have recently clashed on a number of issues, including the origin of the coronavirus and China’s move to implement a national security law in Hong Kong.
Russel said the rhetoric of “blaming China” and “harden China” in the United States means that tensions between the two countries could worsen.
“This is an immovable object that meets irresistible force, there is a lot of friction and it is unlikely to end well,” he added.
– CNBC’s Amanda Macias contributed to this report.
.
