TIL Desk/World/Washington/ China has taken actions that have provided risk to the American people, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday, alleging that Chinese have been ‘bribing’ leadership in countries to bag infrastructure projects.
“I think if you go look at (Chinese) President Xi’s (Jinping) stated intentions, you can clearly see that China has a plan that is different than the one that they had five years ago or even two or three years ago. You see this in their ability to use their money around the world,” Pompeo said in an interview with Hugh Hewitt of the Hugh Hewitt Show. Pompeo said that he has spoken about this repeatedly. “I spoke to it when I was in Panama and I travel the world.
“I remind countries we welcome commercial competition with China on a fair and reciprocal basis, but when China shows up with bribes to senior leaders in countries in exchange for infrastructure projects that will harm the people of that nation, then this idea of a treasury-run empire build is something that I think would be bad for each of those countries and certainly presents risk to American interests, and we intend to oppose them at every turn,” he said.
Pompeo said that the US has been consistent with its strategy on China since the beginning of this administration, which is to recognise the competitive nature of the relationship between the two countries, and as China has taken actions that have provided risk to the American people.
