Why Pompeo declared China as a tyrant?

Is the China appeasement policy of four decades finally over?

US Secretary of State Michael R Pompeo repudiated decades-old American policy of engaging communist China to change it as a failure and called for an international alliance of countries to take it from here, framing it as a choice for them between freedom and tyranny. A typical cold war era american rhetoric. 

“The old paradigm of blind engagement with China has failed,” Pompeo said in a widely anticipated policy speech at a legacy California library run by the foundation of late President Richard Nixon, who re-established diplomatic ties with China and paved the way for its opening with a historic visit in 1972.

“If the free world doesn’t change Communist China — (it) will surely change us,,” Pompeo added, blithely outsourcing Trump administration’s political beef with China.

The Thursday speech was the fourth in a formatted series by senior members of the Trump administration framing deteriorating relations with China, marked by a slew of punitive measures, including most recently, the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, under allegations it was being used as an intelligence gathering hub.

The earlier three were delivered by National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien who had focused on ideological underpinnings of the Chinese Communist Party; Attorney General William Barr had addressed business and trade ties and FBI director Christopher Wray spoke on intelligence and hacking. Pompeo wrapped it up with the widely anticipated speech Thursday.

The top US diplomat said, citing Nixon, the purpose of engaging with China was to “induce change”. The thinking among policymakers then was that as China became more prosperous it would become “freer at home” and “friendlier abroad”. It did not quite happen that way.

“The kind of engagement we have been pursuing has not brought the kind of change in China that President Nixon hoped to induce,” Pompeo said, adding, “Whatever the reason, China today is increasingly authoritarian at home, and more aggressive in its hostility to freedom abroad.”

Nations must change the way they deal with China. “We cannot treat this incarnation of China as a normal country,” Pompeo said, adding the United States cannot do it alone because the Chinese have spread far too wide and deep into the world, unlike the Soviet Union, which had remained closed.There is a need for “a new grouping of like-minded nations - a new alliance of democracies”. He did not specify which nations. In a question-answer session following the speech, the secretary of state said these nations will have the backing of the US for sure.

When asked if he was urging nations to pick between the US and China, in line with a choice the US presented to the world in the 1940s between itself and the USSR, Pompeo said the choice for them was between “freedom and tyranny”.

“If we bend the knee now, our children’s children may be at the mercy of the CCP (the Chinese Communist Party), whose actions are the primary challenge to the free world,” he had said in his speech, as he was laying out the threat the world faced form China. President Xi Jinping “Xi isn’t destined to tyrannize inside and outside of China forever, unless we let him”.

The secretary of state also argued for involving Chinese people. in changing the regime — not overthrow it.

“We must also engage and empower the Chinese people...a dynamic, freedom-loving people who are completely distinct from the Chinese Communist Party.” he said. He has been meeting Chinese dissidents from Xinjiang and Hong Kong and some of them were present in the audience at the invitation-only event.

Mike Pompeo has summed up the mood of Trump administration towards China. It shows the frustration of American administration regarding the state dominated economic model of China. The American ruling class thought that market reforms that begun in 1978 will abolish the Communist rule in China like Soviet Union. The thought was that reforms will finally restore the capitalism and china will become a capitalist democracy like Russia. But it never happen. 
Through the market reforms and increased trade, China integrated its economy with world market and economy. China ended its economic isolation through this process. china has public ownership, planning and investment. State still dominates the economy. 
This Chinese economic model is the real threat for America. Chinese model has proved during the COVID-19 pandemic that it is far more efficient system than capitalist neoliberal models like America. So the chinese system is the real target. 

There are certain reasons that why Trump administration continue to attack China in recent period.  The American administration’s attitude has become aggressive as the November presidential elections are approaching fast. The tensions are rising between the two largest economies of the world.

Let’s discuss the political reason first.  President Trump is trailing against Democratic candidate Joe Biden with a wide margin. He thinks that spread of COVID-19 pandemic in America is the main reason of his falling popularity.  He is blaming China for this situation.

Joe Biden, the former vice-president and the presumptive Democratic nominee, leads the President by nearly nine points in the Real Clear Politics average of polls. He is also leading in other polls including Fox news poll. The most worrying thing for Trump is that he is trailing Biden in the swing states that gave him the presidency in 2016. These states are crucial in deciding the next president. Trump is trailing behind in all six swing states.

That is why Trump administration has changed its attitude towards China and officials are using aggressive language against China. It seems that China will feature in the presidential campaign as one of the main issue. In 2016, trade deals and and economy were the main issues of Trump's campaign. in 2020, it seems that rise of communist China is going to be a major issue. 

One thing is clear that Trump administration and right wing Republican party wants to whip up the Anti communist and anti China sentiments that exist in sections of American population. They want to rally around the right wing voters on the presumed fear of Communist China. The whole situation has changed in few months. 
  President Trump was praising the Chinese efforts to contain and control the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2020. He tweeted on January 24, three days after the first case of coronavirus suffered in US and said that “China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus,” President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter three days later, taking an indulgent view of Beijing’s alleged culpability. “The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi.”
                                             

President Trump’s frustration with China has grown exponentially in recent period. He has attacked Beijing for letting the virus escape its borders. “So it’s a shame that it happened. It shouldn’t have happened. China should have stopped it,” he said recently, re-litigating his case against China.

Trump ran his 2016 campaign for the White House on the promise of ending China’s rogue behaviour on trade, including currency manipulation. He set into motion a series of measures soon after coming into office that led to a full-fledged trade war between the world’s two largest economies shortly.

He pursued a trade deal even though it had become clear that China was not interested in conceding the main American asks, such as ending forced transfer of technology. He won a limited Phase 1 deal, but never got to the larger agreement that he had wanted to claim complete victory.

It is no longer a priority. “The trade deal means less to me now than it did when I made it,” Trump told reporters Thursday.

Trade ceded centre stage to Covid-19 as the main China issue when infections and fatalities began shooting around March. New York city and state soon replaced China’s Wuhan and Hubei province as the new epicenters of the raging pandemic, and Trump was left defending his shoddy handling of his administration must change the way they deal with China. 

There have been more than four million Covid-19 cases in the United States, and over 144,000 fatalities. COVID-19 pandemic may be the “China virus” or the “Wuhan virus”, as Trump and his aides have sought to portray it to shift blame, but it is an American problem, more than anything else.

Trump administration is blaming China for its own failures. The market-driven American health care system simply collapsed and Trump's policies allowed the virus to spread. 

                                                                      Khalid Bhatti