(Co-authored with KCG)
When Mike Pompeo was a child, did someone sing him lullabies with the lyrics "China is out to get you" in the chorus? Were the same songs sung to the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, who recently dubbed China is the No. 1 threat to U.S. national security?
They are determined to paint China as dangerous. And by golly, they're going to do something about it in the closing days of the Trump clown show.
Pompeo has slammed the doors on five exchange programs with China. Policymakers Educational China Trip Program, the U.S.-China Friendship Program, the U.S.-China Leadership Exchange Program, the U.S.-China Transpacific Exchange Program, and the Hong Kong Educational and Cultural Program.
A review of the latest news suggests that nobody else knows what the heck these programs are either. We don't even know if they involve adults or students.
One thing we do know, though, is that China pays for them, and Pompeo calls them "soft power propaganda tools.” Pompeo says that you only get to talk to Chinese party officials, not the Chinese people. "They provide carefully curated access to Chinese Communist party [CCP] officials, not to the Chinese people, who do not enjoy freedoms of speech and assembly.”
The State Department says that the programs were conducted under Section 108A of the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 (John Kennedy signed it, and he's a Democrat). That law allows federal employees to travel using foreign government funds.
“The United States welcomes the reciprocal and fair exchange of cultural programs with [Chinese] officials and the Chinese people,” Pompeo said in his statement. “But one-way programs such as these are not mutually beneficial.”
First time we've heard of Trumpies turning down a free grif -- oops! Gift.
It could be that these weren’t helpful programs, we don’t really know. But we are suspicious of Pompeo in general, and the timing of these program cancellations is particularly fishy. We hope someone in the Biden Administration will look into the programs to see if they should be improved and possibly reciprocated.
In general, we support more State Department programs, not less. Any program that can help the US and China understand each other better seems helpful.
What’s your reaction? Do you Trust Pompeo to act in the best interest of international diplomacy? What do you think of the timing of these cancellations? Did Pompeo want Republican staffers to have access to these programs, but is he trying to prevent future Democratic staffers from talking with and visiting China?
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