Mike Pompeo calls China Communist Party the ‘central threat of our times’
US secretary of state warns next century must be governed by ‘democratic principles,’ has previously asserted that China is a bigger long-term worry than Russia or Iran
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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday called China’s ruling Communist Party “the central threat of our times” to Western values.
“The Chinese Communist Party presents the central threat of our times,” Washington’s top diplomat said at a joint appearance with Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.
He added that Western allies must “ensure that the next century is governed by these Western democratic principles.”
Pompeo’s remarks came as Washington pressed Britain and other European states to exclude China’s Huawei tech giant from their next-generation 5G mobile networks.
Joined Foreign Secretary @DominicRaab for a positive and candid discussion at @Policy_Exchange in London. We had a fantastic exchange of ideas – it’s these dynamic conversations that make our bilateral and people-to-people relationship so strong. pic.twitter.com/KKKPdgfpkB
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 30, 2020
Britain on Tuesday decided to allow Huawei to build “non-core” elements of 5G that do not handle sensitive personal data.
It also capped Huawei’s market share to 35 percent and promised to lower it in the future.
Brussels adopted a similar policy for EU member states on Wednesday.
US officials have warned that Washington might have to stop sharing intelligence with London if it included any elements of the Chinese company in its new network because of the security risk.
But Pompeo appeared to walk back that threat on Thursday.
The US-UK intelligence sharing “relationship is deep, it is strong, it will remain,” Pompeo said.
He added that he was “confident … as we move forward together to make sure the next generation of technology is secure.”
This is not the first time that Pompeo has described China in such terms. In late 2018, he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that the “Chinese continue to build up their capabilities,” both military and technological, and that the US “has a duty to defend itself, and we need to make sure that we have the resources and the right set of leaders and capabilities so that we don’t find ourselves in a place two, five or fifteen years from now where we no longer maintain the capacity to keep America safe and secure against all threats, especially including the one that the Chinese are building.”
“Over the five, ten, twenty-five year time horizon, just by simple demographics and wealth, as well as by the internal system in that country, China presents the greatest challenge that the United States will face in the medium to long term,” he asserted.
Last month, citing security concerns expressed by defense officials and lawmakers, the US Army banned the popular Chinese social networking app TikTok because it may pose a security risk. In early December, the military instructed servicemen not to keep the app on government-issued phones in response to a Defense Department Cyber Awareness Message which cautioned there were “potential security risks associated with its use,” Military.com reported.
The Times of Israel Community.