Pompeo slams China’s ‘debt trap diplomacy’
US secretary of state says countries dealing with Beijing ‘ultimately lose’
WASHINGTON— US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday lashed out at what he said was China’s “debt trap diplomacy” and expressed disappointment that Italy joined the “Silk Road” network of transport and trade links being built by Beijing.
Pompeo said China practiced debt trap diplomacy with its state-owned or state-controlled enterprises looking after only their own interests.
Losers
“It may feel good in the moment—you think you got a cheap product or a low-cost bridge or road built,” Pompeo said.
“And in the end there will be a political cost attached to that which will greatly exceed the economic value of what you were provided,” he said.
Rome’s populist govern- ment signed a “nonbinding” protocol with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday that made Italy the first nation in the Group of Seven major economies to become part of the signature Chinese project.
“It’s disappointing anytime any country begins to engage in behavior and commercial interactions with China that aren’t straight up,” Pompeo told the US House foreign affairs committee in response after a lawmaker asked about the Italian decision.
“We’re saddened because we think the people of those countries ultimately lose,” Pompeo said.
Under the Silk Road initiative, named for the ancient trading route across Eurasia, China is funding major rail, road and sea infrastructure as it seeks a big boost in international trade.
The United States has stepped up its warnings around the world about China’s growing economic clout.
It has urged nations not to choose Chinese telecom giant Huawei to upgrade to fifth-generation communication technology, voicing privacy and security fears.
Also on Wednesday, Pompeo denounced China’s “shameful hypocrisy” over its treatment of Muslims, as he met a former prisoner and relatives who recounted abuses as part of Beijing’s widespread detention of its Uighur minority.
“China must release all those arbitrarily detained and end its repression,” Pompeo said in a tweet.
“The world cannot afford China’s shameful hypocrisy toward Muslims,” he said.
“On one hand, China abuses more than a million Muslims at home, but on the other it protects violent Islamic terrorist groups from sanctions at the UN,” he said.