Pompeo's distortion of Sino-US relations highlights his personal political ambitions
Author: Wei Silan
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave an interview on August 5, systematically and comprehensively expounding China's principled position on Sino-US relations, and forcefully responded to the so-called "US policy of engagement with China has failed."
In the interview, Wang Yi characterized the relevant argument as regaining the Cold War mentality and spreading "political virus", which is ignorance of the historical process; he also refuted it with a series of historical facts and data. Wang Yi said that Sino-US relations are facing the most severe situation since the establishment of diplomatic relations. The root cause lies in the existence of some political forces that are biased and hostile towards China in the United States.
On July 23, US Secretary of State Pompeo delivered a China-related speech at the Nixon Presidential Library in California. Pompeo claimed in his speech that the US policy of engagement with China has failed, and that the US has failed to lead China's development path. He further proposed that the United States will adopt a "distrust and verification" strategy toward China in the future.
According to Pompeo’s absurd logic, the original intention of the United States’ contacts with China more than 40 years ago was to “reform China”, and the United States has the responsibility to lead this change. But the fact is that the background of the Cold War era is the biggest driving force for the United States to decide to engage with China.
Fu Limin, a former senior US diplomat who served as President Nixon to visit China at any time in 1972, said a few days ago that Nixon did not intend to change China, except for hoping to shape the direction of China's foreign policy and support China to counterbalance the Soviet Union. He said that Pompeo's remarks are completely a distortion of history and reality.
Ironically, Pompeo deliberately avoided the background of the times but became the core of his current speech. Although he did not use the word "cold war" in his speech, this speech full of ideological prejudice and hostility was widely regarded as a "new cold war"-style combat statement.
In order to achieve the effect, he deliberately magnified the ideological differences between China and the United States, discredited the Chinese Communist Party, exaggerated China's penetration and threat to the entire "free world", and tried to use lies to arouse panic in the hearts of the American people. He embedded all aspects of Sino-U.S. relations into an opposing paradigm to explain, and used a series of unwarranted charges against China on issues involving economy and trade, intellectual property rights, human rights, South China Sea, Hong Kong, and cross-strait issues. Create the illusion that "China is a strategic competitor of the United States."
From the content point of view, Pompeo’s speech is nothing new. It just composes various political lies, imagining that "a lie can become truth if it is repeated a thousand times." This is his usual trick, and he never gets tired of it.
As everyone knows, lies and misunderstandings are vulnerable to the facts. It should be said that the differences between China and the United States in the field of ideology have existed for a long time, and putting aside the differences is the key to the contact between China and the United States more than 40 years ago. After several generations of hard work, Sino-US relations have developed into the most important bilateral relationship, and ideological differences have not affected the peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation of the two countries. As Wang Yi said, “The two sides need not and cannot change the other side, but should respect the independent choices made by the other side’s people.”
So, as the number one US diplomat, why did Pompeo ignore the history and reality of the exchanges between the two countries, insist on sabotaging the overall situation of Sino-US relations, and drag China and the US into conflict and confrontation?
The political motives and personal calculations behind this cannot be ignored. Since assuming the post of Secretary of State of the United States, Pompeo has always adhered to a conservative political stance and has never forgotten to strengthen his anti-China label. He used his power to spread all kinds of lies about China in the United States and abroad, took various extreme measures to undermine the cultural exchanges between China and the United States, and even made the act of closing the Chinese Consulate in Houston.
Some analysts believe that there are three main motivations for Pompeo’s series of anti-China actions. One is to show U.S. President Trump and show loyalty to him; the other is to show U.S. voters to show strength to China and help Tron. General is re-elected; the third is to pave the way for future political careers and seize every opportunity to consolidate anti-Chinese settings.
Regardless of whether Pompeo's personal ambitions can be realized, looking at the overall situation of Sino-US relations alone, his wishful thinking is doomed to fail, and actions that go against the trend of history are doomed to fail. Today's Sino-US relations have been resilient enough and accumulated enough depth to deal with various shocks. (Finish)