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Foreign Policy Update

CHINA

The American people have been “fed a bill of goods that if we simply engage with China, that they would leave us alone and behave in a way that was consistent with how other large nations behaved,” according to Secretary of State Pompeo. In a press briefing this week, he pointed out that the foreign policy establishment wrongly assumed China would open up politically. Unfortunately, the risk to the United States and it democratic allies in the Pacific appears to be increasing in recent months.

President Trump, noted Pompeo, is going to “respond by the simple demand that they engage in trading relationships that are fair and reciprocal…” What this means for China is that when it participates in international organizations around the world, they need to be transparent and open the way that democracies do. “When they engage in behavior like they did around the virus that emanated from Wuhan, China, that’s now killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world and destroyed trillions of dollars in wealth and has got people that can’t go back to work, can’t go back to their churches – when that happens, we’re going to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for their errant behavior,” said Pompeo.

HONG KONG

At the beginning of July the new draconian national security legislation that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong, went into effect. It permits mainland China’s security services to operate with impunity in Hong Kong

On July 14 President Trump responded to the move by Beijing to curtail Hong Kong residents’ rights. The US is taking steps to end U.S. preferential treatment for Hong Kong, terminate the territory’s benefits with regard to U.S. export controls, and direct the initiation of steps to suspend our extradition agreement with Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Autonomy Act, according to the State Department, will give the Administration additional tools to promote accountability for those responsible for extinguishing Hong Kong’s freedoms. The President, according to a state released by the State Department, directed the Administration to “place a special focus on the admission of Hong Kong residents as refugees based on humanitarian concerns, demonstrating the enduring U.S. commitment to stand with the oppressed.

The Chinese Communist Party commitment in the form of an international treaty with the United Kingdom and including the people of Hong Kong confirmed there would be a separate system in Hong Kong with guarantees of certain rights that weren’t available in other parts of China. Now the Chinese Communist Party has “welched on that deal,” said Pompeo. The United States, he added, will now treat Hong Kong as it treats other parts of China since Beijing has declined to follow through on its promise. 

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Hong Kong will no longer be given preferential treatment, said Pompeo, because it’s “just going to become another communist-run city and there’s no reason to live with the fiction of all the things that we have done alongside Hong Kong because they were a place with more rule of law, more democracy, more freedom.”

RUSSIA

On Monday Secretary Pompeo privately reminded  Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov of this country’s obligation not to engage with the Taliban. Lavrov denied any involvement by Moscow. Allegations abound that the Russians have been providing bounties to the Taliban to attack U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Pompeo, speaking at an Economic Club event in New York said that he has “talked to the Russians about Afghanistan for three and a half years now, first as CIA director and now as Secretary of State.” He pointed out that the Mujahideen was successful at forcing the Russians to leave. The Russians have used proxies around the world and there was some risk they would use proxies in Afghanistan for nefarious purposes. Pompeo said the US has done everything it can to make sure it has the intelligence collection collected appropriately. He also noted that Washington has responded to the threats of outside actors, whether it was the Iranians, the Russians, the Pakistanis, or other outside non-state actors “who were funding and underwriting the Taliban, putting Americans at risk.” 

NORTH KOREA

Secretary Pompeo said he is hope that senior officials from both the US and North Korea will meet for talks. “There’s more discussion than is publicly noticed” on North Korea, according to Pompeo. In a press briefing he pointed out that the United States is continuing to work on the issue. “In June of 2018, in Singapore, Chairman Kim and President Trump met and they laid down a broad set of objectives that were agreed to – not only denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula with a fully verified mechanism to ensure that that had taken place, but also prosperity for the North Korean people, a security situation for both North and South Korea that was satisfactory to each of them as well,” said Pompeo.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

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