Pompeo blasts Beijing as deadline nears for China to shutter Houston consulate

Pompeo’s remarks on the Nixon Library Thursday, titled “Communist China and the Free World’s Future,” solid aspersions on Beijing and its relations with the US, almost 50 years after President Richard Nixon turned the primary US president to journey to China.

“We should admit our fact that ought to information us within the years and many years to return, that if we need to have a free 21st century, and never the Chinese language century of which Xi Jinping desires, the previous paradigm of blind engagement with China merely will not get it achieved,” he mentioned. “We should not proceed it and we should not return to it.”

He appeared to solid the US-China competitors as a modern-day Chilly Warfare, saying that “securing our freedoms from the Chinese language Communist Get together is the mission of our time and America is completely positioned to guide it.”

Pompeo delivered the speech on the heels of a US order to shut the Chinese language consulate in Houston — “as a result of it was a hub of spying and mental property theft,” in his phrases. The order — the most recent in a sequence of escalations between Washington and Beijing — calls for that the Chinese language shutter the property by Friday.

‘Huge theft’

Nonetheless, in an interview with Politico Thursday, Consul Normal Cai Wei advised the diplomatic outpost might defy that order.

“At present we’re nonetheless working usually, so we’ll see what is going to occur tomorrow,” he informed the information outlet, however didn’t elaborate additional.

Chinese language officers have urged the USA to reverse its determination and have threatened retaliation.

State Division spokesperson Morgan Ortagus mentioned that they “needed to make the choice to shut down this consulate on account of this huge, huge theft of our analysis and our mental property.”

“We have uncovered spy rings,” she claimed in an interview with “Quest Means Enterprise” Thursday.

“However most significantly, I believe what has been very troubling to us is the theft of analysis from our universities, from our hospitals, the theft of mental property, the theft from know-how firms. So the FBI and the Division of Justice have began to put out the case and present the information once more,” she mentioned.

A seven web page doc ready by US regulation enforcement officers and shared throughout US authorities businesses particulars cases of covert Individuals’s Liberation Military exercise within the US, together with particulars associated to the Houston consulate particularly, based on the doc reviewed by CNN.

Chinese language Overseas Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin denied the allegations that the consulate was the “epicenter” of illicit actions.

‘New tyranny’

Pompeo’s speech made solely a small point out of the consulate closure. The highest US diplomat as an alternative centered on the broader tensions between the 2 nations, portray China as an insidious risk that has taken benefit of relations with democratic nations.

“As President Trump has made very clear, we’d like a method that protects the American financial system and certainly our lifestyle. The free world should conquer this new tyranny,” he mentioned.

“The reality is that our insurance policies — and people of different free nations — resurrected China’s failing financial system, solely to see Beijing chunk the worldwide arms that have been feeding it,” Pompeo continued. “We opened our arms to Chinese language residents, solely to see the Chinese language Communist Get together exploit our free and open society.”

Whereas acknowledging variations between China and the Soviet Union, Pompeo mentioned China is repeating a number of the similar errors that the Soviet Union made, comparable to alienating allies and rejecting property rights and rule of regulation. He referred to as President Xi Jinping a “true believer in a bankrupt totalitarian ideology.”

Pompeo referred to as on the US and allies to work to “change China’s conduct.”

His speech was the fourth and culminating occasion in a sequence of remarks from the administration towards China. Nationwide Safety Adviser Robert O’Brien, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Legal professional Normal Invoice Barr delivered related remarks on the risk from Beijing.

CNN’s Nicole Gaouette and Kylie Atwood contributed to this report.

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