onsdag 7. oktober 2020

Pompeo keeps up anti-China campaign overseas as Washington plunged into Covid-19 chaos

All eyes may be on coronavirus test results in Washington, but Mike Pompeo is staying focused on China.
The US Secretary of State was in Tokyo Tuesday for a meeting of the Quad, or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which includes the United States, Japan, Australia, and India. Ahead of the summit, Pompeo rallied Washington's regional allies against Beijing, criticizing the "Chinese Communist Party's coverup" in the initial stages of the coronavirus pandemic, and saying "it is more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the CCP's exploitation, corruption, and coercion."

His language was not necessarily matched by other Quad members, though both Australia's Marise Payne and Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar spoke of the need for a "free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific," a phrase which is often used to reference pushing back against China's territorial claims to much of the region.

Pompeo is one of the fiercest China hawks in the Trump administration, and has remained concentrated on Beijing even as Washington has been largely plunged into chaos by the President's coronavirus infection and that of many other top administration officials.