May 19, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — The Chinese Communist Party is currently engaged in a variety of operations to gain influence around the world, posing a risk to the national security of the United States, according to recent comments by secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
“The Chinese Communist Party working inside of their own country is one thing; their efforts to create control and influence around the world are quite another, and we have a responsibility to fix that,” Pompeo told Breitbart News this weekend.
One of the top Chinese projects Pompeo was referring to is the regime’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is an effort to develop numerous international partnerships, ostensibly for infrastructure and transportation projects. “Several Asian and African nations have acceded to the Chinese regime’s plans, only to find themselves in serious financial distress afterward,” Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle notes.
China is also working to get its hooks into the United States, Pompeo said.
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“I spoke to the National Governors’ Association a few months back where I shared that they are working to influence governors, mayors, school board members, private business owners to influence them to put the bright face of China on what is actually the Chinese Communist Party that’s seeking to exert their influence here inside the United States,” he explained. “You talked about our universities and our research labs. This is not about good Chinese people working on commercial projects. We find that acceptable. This is about the Chinese Communist Party exerting its influence here in the United States for missions that are deeply connected to the regime in China trying to exert influence in places where it ought not to be, and we’re doing everything we can to push back against that.”
The article goes on to note two cases of American professors, one at Harvard University and another at the University of Arkansas, who were arrested this year for seeking grants and other influential projects without disclosing that they were subsidized by the Chinese government’s “Thousand Talents Plan.”
“President Trump got this right in his campaign,” Pompeo said. “It’s something that presidents of both political parties have ignored for far too long. President Trump has taken it on squarely. You’ve seen it. It’s very public what he’s done on trade to try to make sure that that is fair and reciprocal.”
The secretary’s warnings come as the Chinese government finds itself in the global hot seat for its role in allowing the COVID-19 virus to spread globally while lying to the world about the danger.