Pompeo: China Trying To ‘Exploit Our Freedoms To Gain Advantage Over Us’ At Federal, State, Local Levels

Posted On Feb 9, 2020 By admin With Comments Off

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke at the National Governors Association’s winter meeting on Saturday where he reminded ministers to be on the looking after for communist Chinese officials trying to infiltrate and influence commonwealth and local level politics.

” While there are still residence we can cooperate, we can’t ignore China’s acts and strategic planneds. If we do, we risk the important components of our relationship that benefit both countries ,” Pompeo said.” The Chinese Government has been methodical in the way it’s analyzed our arrangement, our very open system, one that we’re deeply proud of. It’s determined our vulnerabilities, and it’s decided to exploit our discretions to gain advantage over us at the federal position, the commonwealth degree, and the local level .”

” What China does in Topeka and Sacramento reverberates in Washington, in Beijing, and far beyond. Competition with China is happening. It’s happening in your district ,” Pompeo continued.” In detail, I would be surprised if the majority of members of you in the audience have not been lobbied by the Chinese Communist Party immediately. Chinese Communist Party friendship organizations like the one that I invoked earlier are in Richmond, Minneapolis, Portland, Jupiter, Florida, and many other municipals around the country .”

” But sometimes China’s undertakings aren’t quite that public, and I want to talk about some of that today. Let me spoke you an excerpt of a character from a Chinese mediator. It was China’s Consul General in New York sent a character last-place month to the speaker of one of your territory legislatures ,” Pompeo continued.” Think about that. You had a diplomat from China assigned here to the United States, a representative of the Chinese Communist Party in New York City, sending an official letter exhort that an American elected official shouldn’t exercise his right to freedom of speech. Let that sink in for simply a instant. And this isn’t a one-off event. It’s happening all across the country .”

Pompeo also highlighted how socialist China was trying to shape the U.S. though the educational system, and how it works to steal confidential datum from U.S. institutes to take back to China.

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TRANSCRIPT 😛 TAGEND

Thank you, Governor Hogan, Governor Cuomo. Nice to see you.

It’s immense supposed to be here with you all. I was watching basketball on my phone on the way in- Auburn 91, LSU 90- and I- it’s a final in overtime. Yes, accurately. I was reminded – you said I’m the 70 th Secretary of State. It ever reminds me President Trump is the 45 th President of the United Mood, so there is a lot more turnover in my gig than there is in his.( Laughter .) So it’s good to be with you today.

I do want to thank Governor Hogan and the weaknes chair, Governor Cuomo, and everyone else now at NGA for hosting me here today.

It’s a hard act to follow, following the President’s State of the Union address the other night. I had not yet been awards of naturalnes to distribute here today.

Nor am I passing out forgeries, so you can’t tear them up when I’m done.( Laughter .)

I’ve gotten to know some of you as I’ve traveled throughout the states. I’ve probably traveled inside the country more than countless secretaries of state. It’s something they usually don’t do as much. I think it’s important that the American parties are aware that our statesmen are doing around the world and why we’re doing it.

So I just wanted to mention that if you encounter me in your commonwealth, I’m not lost. Your state has not seceded from the union. I know where I am.

Although I know there are some kinfolks in California who are clamoring for “Calexit, ” so President Newsom, I look forward to working with Secretary of State Feinstein when that comes to be.( Laughter .)

I can get away with California jokes. I grew up in southern California. My dad still lives in the same house I grew up in in Orange County. It’s a wonderful place.

Last year, I invited to an happen that promised to be, quote, “an occasion for exclusive deal-making.” It said, repeat, “the opportunities for mutually beneficial economic developing between China and our individual states[ are] tremendous, ” end of quote.

Deal-making sounds like it might have come from President Trump, but the invitation was actually from a former governor.

I was being invited to the U.S.-China Governors’ Collaboration Summit.

It was an event co-hosted by the National Governors Association and something called the Chinese People’s Association For Friendship and Foreign Countries. Hubbub reasonably harmless.

What the invitation did not say is that the group- the group I just mentioned- is the public face of the Chinese Communist Party’s official foreign influence enterprise, the United Front Work Department.

Now, I was lucky. I is well aware of that formation from my hour as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

But it got me thinking.

How many of you established the connections between that group and Chinese Communist Party officials?

What if you made a new friend while you were at that occurrence?

What if your new friend asked you for openings to other politically connected and potent parties?

What if your new friend offered to invest big money in your country, perhaps in your pension, in manufactures sensitive to our national security?

These aren’t hypotheticals. These scenarios are all too true-life, and they impact American foreign policy significantly.

Indeed, last year, a Chinese Government-backed think tank in Beijing produced a report that estimated all 50 of America’s superintendents on their attitudes towards China. They labeled each of you “friendly, ” “hardline, ” or “ambiguous.”

I’ll let you decide where you think you belong. Someone in China once has. Many of you, definitely, in that report are referenced by name.

So here’s the lesson: The instruction is that competition with China is not just a federal publication. It’s why I wanted to be here today, Governor Hogan. It’s happening in your positions with consequences for our foreign policy, for their fellow citizens that reside in your governments, and undoubtedly, for each of you.

And, in fact, whether you are viewed by the CCP as affectionate or hardline, know that it’s working you, know that it’s working the team around you.

Competition with China is happening inside of your nation, and it changes our capacity to perform America’s vital national certificate functions.

I want to set the context today for this topic.

At the end of the Cold War, America started to engage with China heavily. It made good sense. We thought that the more we interacted, the more it would become like a radical democracy, like us here in the United States.

It didn’t happen, and you all know this.

Indeed, under Xi Jinping, the country is moving precisely in the opposite direction- more repression, more unfair competition, more predatory fiscal rehearsals; really, a more aggressive military posture as well.

You should know this doesn’t mean we can’t do business with China. I had an operation when I operate Century International. We had a small office in Shanghai. We can find situates to cooperate when our interests converge.

You can see that in the first part of the trade lot that President Trump got done, signed last-place month.

We’re happy about that. It was the right thing to do. That was indeed a batch that was good for both the United States and China. And these financial ties are potent. They’re important and good. They’re good for your state; they’re good for America.

Look at the nearly 18 tons of medical plies the United Nation time flew to China this past week to help fight the coronavirus. Yesterday we announced more than $ 100 million in assistance to China and the countries that are affected by that virus.

And on that note, too, I just wanted to take a few moments to note I want to send my condolences to the loved ones of the United Nation citizen who fell victim to the coronavirus in Wuhan over the last days.

But while there are homes we can cooperate, we can’t ignore China’s actions and strategic meanings. If we do, we risk the important components of our relationship that assistance both countries.

The Chinese Government has been methodical in the way it’s analyzed our organisation, our very open system, one that we’re seriously proud of. It’s determined our vulnerabilities, and it’s decided to exploit our openness to gain advantage over us at the federal rank, the government grade, and the local level.

Last year, I has declared that I would throw a series of address on China, and this is part of that. It’s the context in which state and local government officials ought to think about the behavior they head with respect to our relationship. It’s important. China matters.

It’s been part of my assignment at the State Department to mobilize all parts of the United Country Government. I was out in Silicon Valley a couple weeks ago to talk to America’s guiding tech business about this very set of issues.

And I use your help, too.

What China does in Topeka and Sacramento resounds in Washington, in Beijing, and far beyond. Competition with China is happening. It’s happening in your state.

In fact, I would be surprised if most of you in the audience has still not been lobbied by the Chinese Communist Party directly.

Chinese Communist Party friendship organizations like the one that I invoked earlier are in Richmond; Minneapolis; Portland; Jupiter, Florida; and many other municipals around the country.

But sometimes China’s works aren’t quite that public, and I want to talk about some of that today. Let me read you an excerpt of a symbol from a Chinese mediator. It was China’s Consul General in New York sent a symbol last-place month to the speaker of one of your territory legislatures.

Here’s what the symbol said in part. It said, paraphrase, “As we all know, Taiwan is part of China … avoid engaging in any official contact with Taiwan, including direct congratulatory sends to the electeds, introducing proposals and proclamations for the election, transporting officials and representatives to attend the inauguration ceremony, and inviting officials in Taiwan to visit the United States.” End of excerpt from the letter.

Think about that. You had a diplomat from China named here to the United Position, one speaking on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party in New York City, sending an official letter urge that an American elected official shouldn’t exercise his right to freedom of speech.

Let that sink in for just a minute.

And this isn’t a one-off event. It’s happening all across the country.

Chinese consulates in New York, in Illinois, in Texas, and two in California, tied by the diplomatic the obligations and claims of the Vienna Convention, are very politically active at the territory position, as is the embassy right here in Washington, D.C.

Maybe some of you have heard about the time when the Chinese consulate paid the UC-San Diego students to protest the Dalai Lama.

Or last-place August, when onetime minister Phil Bryant of Mississippi received a letter from foreign diplomats in the consul’s office in Houston, threatening to cancel a Chinese asset if the superintendent chose to travel to Taiwan. Phil extended anyway.

Last year, a high school- a high school, a high school in Chicago- disinvited a Taiwanese representative to serve on a climate panel after Chinese pressure.

It’s one thing to push the Secretary of State of the United Country of America. It seems quite something else to go after a high school principal. It depicts penetration. It demonstrates systemization. It demonstrates intent.

Chinese Communist Party officials, extremely, are cultivating relationships with county school board members and neighbourhood politicians- often through what are known as sister municipalities programs.

Look, this Chinese race is something you all know. It sits in the back of your intellect. But “youve had” countless duties and you are busy parties. But this contender is under way. And while these might seem like local matters to some, the cumulative effect is of enormous national importance and international significance.

Of course, extremely, our public educational institutions are another arena of event with China.

I know, superintendents, you don’t extend these institutions on a day-to-day basis, but you often have impact on the people that do. The FBI director and I reckon the United states attorney general, extremely, talked yesterday about something called the “Thousand Talents Plan.” It’s a plan to recruit scientists and professors to transfer the know-how we have here to China in exchange for big paydays.

The program has probably targeted campuses in your mood. Indeed, the Department of Justice has indicted profs in my home state at the University of Kansas and at Virginia Tech and at Harvard.

A Texas A& M investigation reportedly detected more than 100 academics participating in Chinese talent recruitment proposes. Exclusively five members of them had declared that they were participating in this program.

And goodness knows what else we have not discovered.

There are indeed highly credible reports of Chinese Government officials pressuring Chinese students- students studying right here in the United Commonwealth of America- to monitor fellow Chinese students and to report back to Beijing.

One very prominent pro-democracy Chinese student on a college campus in the Northeast last year received death threats- death threats for exercising his right to free speech. The FBI became involved.

Make no mistake about it: We want talented, young Chinese students to come study in the United States of America. I see it at Wichita State University. These are wonderful young people. We ought to encourage them to be here. But they shouldn’t have to fear the long arm of Beijing, which often contacts out via groups like the Chinese Students and Scholars Association.

Look, that’s just one of countless campus groups directly influenced by the Chinese Communist Party and its representatives right here in the United States.

Many of you are familiar with Confucius Institutes. Confucius Institutes allege to have the sole purpose of teaching Mandarin language skills and Chinese culture. A bipartisan Senate committee determined last year in 2019 that the Chinese Communist Party ensures nearly every aspect of the Confucius Institutes’ pleasures here in the United States.

Over the past few months, the University of Missouri, the University of Kansas, the University of Maryland have independently decided to close down their Confucius Institutes after conducting their own scrutinizes, and schools in 22 other governments are doing or have already done the same.

Sadly, China’s propaganda campaign starts even earlier than college. China has targeted K through 12 institutions through its “Confucius Classrooms, ” the CCP’s program to influence kids at rudimentary, middle, and high schools around the world.

Do you know that we have no ability to establish same programs in China? I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you. President Trump has talked about reciprocity in swap. We should have reciprocity in all things. Today they have free rein in our structure, and we’re wholly shut out from theirs.

As of 2017, there were 519 of these classrooms in the United States. Beijing knows that today’s kids are tomorrow’s leaders.

The China competition is happening. It’s happening in your governments, and it’s a competition that goes to the very basic discretions that each of us values.

And when it comes to doing business, I’m asking you to adopt a cautious mindset. In the words of President Reagan, when you’re approached for an introduction or a connection to a administer, trust but verify.

I know you all have superpower over pension funds or the people that moved them. As of its latest public filing, the Florida Retirement System is invested in a company that in turn is invested in surveillance gear that the Chinese Communist Party are applied to road more than 1 million Muslim minorities. California’s pension fund, the largest public pension fund in the country, is invested in business that supply the People’s Liberation Army that situates our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines at risk.

And it is the case for many Chinese fellowships, too- no Sarbanes-Oxley. Their diaries are not wide open, so it’s difficult to know if the transaction that’s being engaged in is transparent and fair and follows the rule of law.

Now, all of these things may well be legal. But the issues is: Do they demo good judgment and perpetuate America’s national protection?

I want to urge vigilance on the local level, very. In the District of Columbia, there have been concerns raised that the new Metro placards manufactured by China is likely to be vulnerable to cyber threats.

So again, it’s worth trust but authenticating. There are federal officials prepared to help you work your space through these challenges when they arise. Don’t stimulate separate individual transactions and agreements with China that erode our national policy. I know nothing of you would do so intentionally. Let us help you make sure we’re coming it right.

We’re here to help. The Trump administration wants to help. There are so many things we have already done.

Last year, we questioned a letter to state governments. It reaffirmed that Taiwan remains a key business spouse and a friend in every other way.

We have strengthened the review process for Chinese business that are investing in your states.

We have lifted visas for so-called “research scholars” who abused their privileges by teaching in Confucius Classrooms, and saw assured that they started the United States.

We’ve censored scientists from the Department of Energy, which overseas America’s 17 largest national- excuse me, nuke laboratories, including our nuclear research facility in New Mexico. We did so because they were participating in Chinese talent recruitment programs.

We have aimed two Chinese propaganda stores, the Chinese Global Television Network and Xinhua News Agency, to register as foreign agents.

And we at the State Department have started to require Chinese officials to apply- comply with the same rules we comply with when we’re in China. Chinese envoys now must notify the State Department in advance of official meets with government and local officials.

They must declare their official visits to U.S. educational and research organizations as well.

This is just fairness, reciprocity, basic common sense. This is not an onerous restriction to put on China.

Look, I know it’s 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon. There are lots of good things we have been able to do. I hope you will all taken into consideration by what I’ve said today.

You all have important missions heading your districts. These are complex, difficult jobs. You have the task to create jobs and opportunity in your district for your beings, allure human uppercase, asset that undergirds our prosperity.

It’s a hard occupation, and you get curveballs every day from all across the place.

But don’t lose sight of the event from China that’s once present in your country. Let’s all rise to the occasion and protect our safety, their own economies; undoubtedly, all that we hold dear, all of those freedoms.

It’s what presidents must do.

It’s what we do as Americans.

I hope God will bless each and every one of you, each of your moods, and the United Mood of America.

Thank you for letting me be with you now this afternoon.