Pompeo in Taiwan calls for end to US ‘blind engagement’ with Beijing
- Former secretary of state says Washington must engage ‘realistically and on our terms’ to prevent Xi Jinping’s dream of a ‘Chinese century’
- He also criticised the Biden administration’s ‘confusing’ statements on strategic ambiguity policy, making it ‘even more ambiguous’
Pompeo also said he was “greatly concerned” about the repeated confusion caused by President Joe Biden over Washington’s stance in the event of an attack on the self-ruled island from the mainland.
“America must admit a hard truth … If we want a free 21st century, and not the Chinese century – the century which Xi Jinping dreams up – the old paradigm of blind engagement must end,” he said on Tuesday, in a speech at the first Global Business Forum in the southern city of Kaohsiung.
Pompeo, who arrived on the island on Monday night for a four-day business trip at the invitation of several local media and trade groups, said the US must instead choose to engage with Beijing “realistically and on our terms, the terms of freedom.”
This included a deeper and far more enthusiastic relationship with Taiwan, he said.
Pompeo said the US and other free nations should “pursue strategic decoupling with China”.