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WASHINGTON (AP) – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Japan, South Korea and Mongolia next week, the State Department said on Tuesday (September 30), on a trip that is expected to be expected. mainly focus on China and North Korea.
Pompeo’s trip to Tokyo will be the first by a senior US official since Yoshihide Suga took office on Sept. 16, succeeding veteran Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a close ally of Washington.
On October 6 in Tokyo, Pompeo will hold a four-way meeting with his counterparts from Australia, India and Japan: the “Quad” formation, strongly promoted by Abe, which has been widely regarded as a bet by the main democracies of the region. to step up to cooperation with China.
Pompeo is a vociferous critic of China on issues ranging from security to human rights to the COVID-19 pandemic, which President Donald Trump’s administration has tried to blame directly on Beijing ahead of the Nov.3 election.
Pompeo has led an international campaign for other nations to avoid China, including its technology.
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His trip to South Korea comes as hopes for a breakthrough with North Korea, which was previously a top Trump priority as he sought foreign policy victories before the election, are dim.
Trump has met three times with the leader of the authoritarian state, Kim Jong Un, and Pompeo recently said that talks are continuing behind the scenes with North Korea, although he admitted the administration would have liked to make more progress.
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Pompeo, the former CIA chief, traveled to North Korea four times in 2018 in hopes of sealing a breakthrough.
But he hasn’t been to the region since June 2019, when he joined Trump at a Group of 20 summit in Japan and a stop in South Korea that included an impromptu meeting with Kim in the Demilitarized Zone.
Pompeo will be the first US secretary of state since 2016 to visit Mongolia, which has sought close relations with the United States amid its delicate position between China and Russia, on October 7.
Pompeo has been traveling frequently in recent weeks after a slowdown due to the coronavirus. He will head to Asia shortly after concluding a trip to Greece, Italy and Croatia.
