My Take | Who’s the brain behind Mike Pompeo’s anti-China stance?
- His principal policy and planning adviser on China, Miles Maochun Yu, harbours some pretty dark thoughts about China and Asia-Pacific
One influential source is his principal policy and planning adviser on China, Miles Maochun Yu. A China-born professor of military history at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, he harbours some pretty dark visions about the world and Asia-Pacific in particular.
On the first point, his 2017 article on secretary of state Dean Acheson’s “infamous” speech made in January 1950 leading to the Korean war is highly instructive. In his speech, Acheson appeared to exclude the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and Republic of China (Taiwan) from the US defence perimeter that extended from Japan’s Ryukyu Islands to the Philippines.
That led Stalin, Mao and Kim Il-sung into the mistaken belief that it was open season on South Korea. Acheson later defended himself, saying Australia and New Zealand weren’t included in the defence perimeter but clearly, the US would come to their defence against any communist aggression.