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US slams China’s LAC deployment
“The Indians are seeing 60,000 Chinese soldiers on their northern border,” Pompeo told The Guy Benson Show in an interview on Friday after returning from Tokyo.
China has sent 60,000 troops near India’s northern border, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said while citing a previously unreported number as he sharply criticised Beijing for its “bad behaviour” and threats it posed to the Quad nations, a remark that comes amid heightened tensions between India and its neighbour over a standoff at the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Foreign ministers from the Indo-Pacific nations known as the Quad group – India, the US, Japan and Australia – met in Tokyo on Tuesday in first such talks since the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic began earlier this year. Members of the Quad pushed for a rules-based global order and peaceful resolution of disputes in the face of China’s growing aggression across the Indo-Pacific.
“The Indians are seeing 60,000 Chinese soldiers on their northern border,” Pompeo told The Guy Benson Show in an interview on Friday after returning from Tokyo. He also commended India for “diplomatically” pushing back by banning Chinese apps and ending government procurements of supplies made in China. “I was with my foreign minister counterparts from India, Australia, and Japan – a format that we call the Quad, four big democracies, four powerful economies, four nations, each of whom has real risk associated with the threats imposed – attempting to be imposed by the Chinese Communist Party. And they see it in their home countries, too,” he said.
Pompeo said US President Donald Trump vowed “to take seriously the threat from General Secretary Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, and we’re no longer going to allow them to run around cost-free and impose their vision for the future upon the West”. He also criticised China’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its telecommunication infrastructure, and said the country steals intellectual property.
There was no immediate reaction from Indian officials on Pompeo’s latest remarks on Chinese troop deployment.
Against the backdrop of the five-month border standoff with China, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said in his opening remarks at the Tokyo meet that India and the other members of Quad remain committed to a rules-based international order, “underpinned by the rule of law, transparency, freedom of navigation in the international seas, respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty and peaceful resolution of disputes”.
At the meet, Pompeo said it was critical for partners in the Quad to collaborate to “protect our people and partners from the [Chinese Communist Party]’s exploitation, corruption, and coercion” that had been witnessed in the South and East China Sea, “the Mekong, the Himalayas [and] the Taiwan Straits”.
Tensions have spiked on the north and south banks of Pangong Lake, where troops from the two sides are within close range of each other and where there have been several instances of firing since late August. Sharp divergences remained between the two countries even after they framed a five-point roadmap for easing tensions on the disputed border and speeding up the disengagement of troops.
Pompeo met Jaishankar and they underscored the need to work together to advance, peace, prosperity and security in the Indo-Pacific and around the globe. He described his meeting with Jaishankar as “productive.” “They see, the people of their (Quad) nations understanding that we all slept on this for too long. For decades, the West allowed the Chinese Communist Party to walk all over us. The previous administration bent a knee, too often allowed China to steal our intellectual properties and the millions of jobs that came along with it. They see that in their country too,” he said in the interview. The US secretary of state spoke of the India-China conflict along with other issues in a string of interviews that were the first since he travelled to Japan for the meeting of the ministers of the Quad.
Underscoring the need for America to be engaged in the region and to stand with allies and friends, the US secretary of state said on the Larry O’Connor show: “They absolutely need the United States to be their ally and partner in this fight. But they’ve all seen it, whether it’s the Indians, who are actually having a physical confrontation with the Chinese up in the Himalayas in the northeastern part of India – right? – the Chinese have now begun to amass huge forces against India in the north.”
On the Hugh Hewitt show, Pompeo spoke of India’s pushback. “The Indians have banned dozens and dozens of Chinese apps, and the Indians have stopped having their government purchase any product from China. That’s remarkable. It’s work that has been done diplomatically, and then there’s the security issues too.” The US, which has since banned several Chinese apps, has strongly condemned Chinese aggression along the Indian border, and has been supportive of New Delhi.
In an interview to Fox News, Pompeo said the US has begun to build out all the edifice of the structure and the allies and the coalition to push back against China. “Look, they’ve stacked 60,000 soldiers against the Indians in the north. When the Australians had the temerity to ask for an investigation of the Wuhan virus... something that we know a lot about, the Chinese Communist Party threatened them. They bullied them,” Pompeo said.
With inputs from PTI
