Distrust and verify: US ups ante against China

CRITICAL SHIFT Pompeo calls for international coalition of democracies to rein in Xi regime

nWASHINGTON::THE US government launched one of its most strident attacks on China yet with secretary of state Michael Pompeo on Thursday repudiating decadesold American policy of engaging with communist China as a strategy that “failed”, and asking allies and world powers to use “more creative and assertive ways” to press Beijing to change its ways.

Pompeo drew on a significant cold war terminology and said China’s military had became “stronger and more menacing” and the approach to Beijing should be “distrust and verify”, adapting President Ronald Reagan’s “trust but verify” mantra about the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

The comments come at a time when Beijing’s ties with Washington, as well as New Delhi, are at their worst in decades, and other countries – such as the UK and Australia – have expressed new concerns over threats emanating from China, particularly those relating to how Chinese companies may be helping the government spy on people around the world and the way Beijing may be flexing its muscles in territorial disputes.

“The old paradigm of blind engagement with China has failed,” Pompeo said in a widely anticipated policy speech at a legacy California library run by the foundation of late President Richard Nixon, who re-established

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China and the

United States have clashed over pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, most recently Beijing's imposition of new security legislation on the former British colony -Michael Pompeo, US secretary of state

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nnnnPompeo made the remarks at the memorial for US president Richard Nixon.

Nixon made a dramatic visit to China in 1972, the first US president to do since China went under Communist rule

The visit paved the way for the two countries to establish diplomatic ties. China’s Houston embassy, which is being shut this week, was the first to open According to Pompeo, Nixon was prophetic when he feared he had created a 'Frankenstein' by opening the world to the Communist party