“The free nations of the world must induce a change in the behaviour of the Communist Party of China (CCP) in more creative and assertive ways because the actions of Beijing threaten our people and our prosperity,” said Mike Pompeo in a speech at the Library of President Richard Nixon, in California.

Paraphrasing Nixon (1969-1974), who initiated the opening of relations with Beijing, Pompeo assured that the US must “induce change” to China and reiterated that the opening has not met US expectations while rejecting that “supremacy of the CCP” be the future.

Pompeo cited human rights violations in Xinjiang and freedoms in Hong Kong as an example and did not forget to resort to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Here we are today wearing masks and watching the death count from the pandemic because the CCP has kept its promises to the rest of the world,” he said. “We must distrust and verify when it comes to the CCP,” said the secretary of state, drawing on a Russian proverb that President Ronald Reagan used during the Cold War to frame his relations with the Soviet Union.

“We have been decades in which the United States has not responded to Chinese aggression,” said Pompeo, who spared no criticism of the Beijing regime, which said it is repeating mistakes by the Soviets in their international relations.

The dialectical escalation of the secretary of state occurs on the eve of the Chinese diplomatic staff of the Chinese consulate in Houston (Texas) having to leave the legation at the behest of Washington, which accuses the mission of participating in economic espionage and fraud of visas. In Pompeo’s opinion, the consulate was a “center for spies and theft of intellectual property.“

The decision is a consequence of the imputation by the Department of Justice of two Chinese hackers, with ties to the intelligence of that country, who tried to obtain secret data on the development of vaccines against coronavirus in two US companies in Maryland and Massachusetts. “The ultimate ambition of China’s leaders is not to trade with the United States. It is to assault the United States. China has stripped us of our valuable intellectual property and industrial secrets,” added Pompeo, who with this language alienates the Administration of President Donald Trump from a de-escalation with Beijing.