Pompeo hits out at CCP for poisoning US higher education

Washington [US], December 15 (ANI): As US–China tensions continue to worsen with each passing day, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Monday (local time), said that Americans must know how the Chinese Communist Party “is poisoning the well” of the US‘ higher education for its own ends.
This comes after Pompeo termed China‘s Communist Party as the “central threat of our time”, while highlighting efforts by Chinese security services to pressure and recruit Chinese academics and students as spies.
“Americans must know how the Chinese Communist Party is poisoning the well of our higher education for its own ends, and how those actions degrade our freedoms and our national security,” Pompeo tweeted.
Pompeo earlier on Monday reiterated that he would evaluate the Chinese Communist Party “as the greatest threat” to the security of the American people and indeed the free world of any of them that are out there.
“There’s a leader, General Secretary Xi Jinping, who is intent upon using the power of state-owned enterprises, their military services all together in this thing they call civil-military fusion to create a hegemony to expand its reach, to expand its power. It does through using commercial activity, including the theft of millions of American jobs. These are the kind of things that pose real risk to the American people,” Pompeo said in an interview with Rob Schmitt of Wake Up America on Newsmax.
Pompeo stated that the US can’t allow them (the CCP) to come to steal secrets from leading research institutions, places like Georgia Tech.
“We can’t allow the Confucius Institutes to act in ways that work against the American people. Those are the kind of things that President Trump has taken on. We’re beginning to have success. There’s an awful lot more work left to be done,” he said.
The Secretary of State said that both political parties looked away, “bent a knee to the Chinese Communist Party” adding, “President (Donald) Trump said enough and we’ve begun to turn the corner and build out a coalition all around the world of democracies and free-market economies to push back against this threat.”
With regard to seeing any direct evidence that China or maybe another foreign power interfered in the 2020 -presidential election, Pompeo said that he hasn’t seen any but the CCP is trying to influence candidates and the way they think about China,
“No, I haven’t seen interference as a direct matter. (But) Make no mistake about it: They are trying to influence the way our elected officials and our candidates think about China and that – that’s likely to continue until administrations like ours work hard, push back,” he said.
China and the US are at loggerheads since President Donald Trump took office over many issues including trade, India-Pacific, coronavirus and treatment of Uyghur Muslims. The tensions between the two countries have escalated in recent times.
Earlier this month, Pompeo, announced sanctions against 14 vice-chairpersons of the National People’s Congress over the controversial national security law imposed on Hong Kong, and also designated China in its list of ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ (CPC) for violations of religious freedom.
Prior to that, John Ratcliffe, US Director of National Intelligence (DNI), in an opinion piece on The Wall Street Journal, wrote: “If I could communicate one thing to the American people from this unique vantage point, it is that the People’s Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide since World War II.”

Pompeo urges countries to join US to hold China accountable for COVID-19

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Monday (local time) lambasted Beijing for covering up the Coronavirus outbreak in China saying that the US and the world is beginning to” build up its efforts to push back” and hold China accountable.
Pompeo in an interview with Rob Schmitt of Wake Up America on Newsmax on Monday cited India as an example of pushing back Chinese products by banning Chinese apps as well.
“We have begun to do that already, and you can in fact see the world beginning to build up its efforts to push back and hold accountable China as well. If you watch what Australia’s doing and other countries – you see what India is doing,” Pompeo said.

“The world understands the simple fact that this virus, this Wuhan virus, came from China and that the Chinese Communist Party covered up what they knew about the risk associated with this virus,” he added.
The Secretary of State further attacked Beijing for allowing people to travel internationally when they should not have done so and further they should have called for a collective response by other countries.
“They should have alerted the world to this. And as a result, we’ve now had a million-plus people killed around the world, enormous economic devastation. The Chinese Communist Party bears direct responsibility for this, and the world needs a collective response to it,” Pompeo stated.
Pompeo has repeatedly hit out at Beijing for its handling of COVID-19 stating that the CCP knew how virulent COVID-19 was.
As per the latest updates by Johns Hopkins University, the global coronavirus cases stand at 72,847,422 with 1,621,150 deaths reported worldwide from the virus. The US continues to be the worst-affected country in the world by the pandemic reporting 16.5 million cases and 300k deaths.

Hong Kong is becoming another Chinese-run communist city, says Pompeo

Hong Kong is becoming just another Chinese-run communist city, US State Secretary Michael Pompeo said on Monday, adding that the United States has challenged the imprisonment of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai under the National Security Law.
Jimmy, the 73-year-old Hong Kong media tycoon and advocate for democracy, was denied bail on Saturday, after being charged with the draconian National Security Law.
Lai was handcuffed and chained around the waist while being escorted to court earlier today, South China Morning Post reported.
He is expected to spend the coming four months in detention while police comb through his social media posts and examine his overseas visits to gather evidence.
Calling Jimmy Lai a “true patriot”, Pompeo said: “He cares deeply about the people of Hong Kong, as does our administration. This is another example where General Secretary Xi Jinping broke a promise. He made a 50-year commitment for freedom for the people of Hong Kong and he’s now bashed it. He’s now taken it away with his national security law that caused the imprisonment of Jimmy Lai, who was simply trying to speak about the basic rights for the people of Hong Kong.”

In an interview with Newsmax, Pompeo said the Chinese Communist Party cannot be trusted.
“I fear that Hong Kong is becoming just another Chinese-run communist city, and that’s too bad. It’s inconsistent with what Xi Jinping had promised and it’s another example of the fact that you simply can’t trust with the Chinese Communist Party says. You have to verify every single thing that they assert,” he said.
In August 2020, Jimmy was arrested under the new National Security Law.
The charge stems from comments Lai purportedly made on Twitter and in interviews asking foreign countries to sanction the city.
This comes after a number of former pro-democracy lawmakers were arrested in the month of October over protests after the draconian National Security Law was imposed on the city by Beijing.
The law criminalizes secession, subversion, and collusion with foreign forces and carries with it strict prison terms. It came into effect from July 1.
Several of those disqualified were sitting lawmakers, who were subsequently ejected from the parliament by Beijing overruling constitutional precedent and bypassing Hong Kong’s courts on November 11, sparking the mass resignation of the entire pro-democratic camp. (ANI)