CHINA DAILY , 2020-02-28
Don't believe the lies
By ZHAO HAI
US secretary of state gave a bravura performance of misdirection at the Munich Security Conference
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continued his spurious claims of "China threat" in his speech at the Munich Security Conference on Feb 15. In his short and poorly received address, Pompeo mentioned China almost a dozen times, and he used all means possible to slander, defame or demonize China, which made US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's attack on Huawei at the conference the day before seem lackluster in comparison.
Pompeo opened his "The West is Winning" speech by claiming that the West had maintained "freedoms and sovereignty" since the end of the Cold War, responding to the challenges of radical Islamist terrorism, the global financial crisis, and "an increasingly aggressive Chinese Communist Party". His speech writer seems to be too young to remember, or too biased to recognize, that the United States helped to train, fund and arm the original international terrorists as anti-Soviet fighters before they turned against their enablers; that the origin of the global financial crisis was the greed of the US financial giants; that the proper responses carried out by the Chinese government were directed at the increasing US deeds of encroachment on the Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity. In fact, Pompeo's speech should have been titled "The US is Domineering", for the US hegemony aimed at limiting and disrespecting other peoples' freedoms and sovereignty is the real source of the many "challenges" in the world today.
Pompeo continued by making a second false accusation, claiming that China "has a border or maritime dispute with nearly every nation bordering it". China shares land borders with 14 countries, and it has negotiated and settled borderlines with all of them except India and Bhutan. As to maritime disputes, China and the neighboring countries can certainly resolve their disputes peacefully through mechanisms such as the Code of Conduct being drawn up for the South China Sea. It is the US that has been seeking to sow distrust and create divisions in the region. The growing provocations perpetrated by the US in the South China Sea do not "defend freedom", they are simply intended to embolden those elements in neighboring nations hoping for confrontation with China.
The third fake accusation has been repeatedly debunked, yet Pompeo brings it up every chance he gets. Huawei and other Chinese technology companies are charged with the crime of being "Trojan horses for Chinese intelligence". It is the US that has been proven to be spying on people, including its own citizens and allies. The abusive use of "national security" in commercial technology and business competition needs to stop at some point. And cyberspace, just like outer space, does not welcome any arms race, instead, it should be regulated by a set of globally negotiated rules.
As he has done on many previous occasions, Pompeo also defamed China's foreign loans. Disregarding the fact that it is the US that constantly uses economic coercion such as punitive tariffs, economic sanctions, export controls, preconditioned aid and investments, Pompeo was brazen enough to single out China for financing badly needed infrastructure in the Belt and Road Initiative countries. Where is the evidence that China "exacts pieces of national infrastructure as payment"? The case of Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka as proof of Chinese "debt trap" has long been discredited and different forms of collateral arrangement for commercial loans should not be confused with geopolitical strategy. By any measure, developing countries are much more likely to fall for the "debt traps" set by Western financial agencies.
Pompeo's next lie can be easily corrected by substituting the subject from China to the US. In the middle of his speech, Pompeo told his audience that "China is increasingly trying to coopt officials at the state and local level". The same thing is happening "all across Europe" and "across the world", implying malicious intentions of Chinese officials. First, coopting officials, instigating "color revolutions", and executing "regime change "are patently US operations, and surely they "destabilize, impoverish, and enslave" the targeted states. Second, China's increasing contacts with local governments in the US are a reflection of how close business, people and cultural ties are between the two countries, and also how troublesome and burdensome current US policies toward China are. Ultimately, the erroneous barriers put in place by the Trump administration in an attempt to disengage with China will be shattered by US people.
But the lies of the secretary of state do not end in the tropical or the temperate zones, they also intruded into the frozen zone of the Arctic, which, according to Pompeo, Russia and China have "designs to exploit" for unfair gain. In order to increase transparency, China published its white paper on "China's Arctic Policy" more than two years ago, which laid out China's policy goals and basic principles on participating in Arctic affairs. While China prioritizes scientific research, environmental protection and sustainable development, and commits to a peaceful Arctic order, the US is expanding oil drilling in the Alaskan Arctic refuge and militarizing the polar waters by conducting more military drills aimed at an imaginary threat from Russia and China.
Why would US Secretary of State lie through his teeth about China? It could be that he really believes those lies which are manufactured and amply supplied by a number of government agencies because of his Cold War mentality. It could also be that he knows they are lies, but it was clearheaded that without building on those lies, he will not be able to drive US allies and the international security elites at the Munich conference to harden their views and policies toward China.
So to finish let's borrow one of Pompeo's sentences warning against Huawei and modify it a little to end this commentary: When the top diplomat of the US shows up at your door, and says you will lose out if you maintain normal relations with China. Don't believe the lie.
The author is a researcher at the Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.