新闻简报室
[摘译]
国务卿蓬佩奥：
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 今天我先开始谈谈中国共产党。
北京与所有未经选举的共产主义政权毫无二致，历来都害怕本国人民的自由思想，甚于任何外部敌人。
这个星期中国共产党关押了许章润，因为他批评总书记习近平采取高压政权以及中国共产党对COVID-19冠状病毒的疫情处理不当。我们对此感到严重不安。他应该被释放。他仅仅道出了真相。他应该尽快被释放。
我将重复几个月来我一直谈论的话题：中国共产党有严重的诚信问题。他们未向全世界通报有关这种病毒的真实情况。现在，全世界各地有数十万人因此丧生。我们需要真相；我们仍然需要真相。我们需要开诚布公。我们需要认真地与世界各地的科学家取得联系。现在他们说，他们可以允许世界卫生组织（WHO）进入。这很好，但是世界卫生组织需要自由地进行本身从事的实际工作。我们需要保证有适当的人员在那里从事这种调查工作。我们需要千真万确的答案，不需要敷衍了事的政治解决方案。这关系到科学，不需要政治。中国共产党必须向全世界和盘托出有关这种病毒的情况。
几个月来，北京声称曾向世界卫生组织通报这种病毒爆发的情况。现在我们都知道，这同样不是真话。我们知道世界卫生组织驻中国办事处仅在获悉武汉市卫生健康委员会发布的媒体声明后才通报了疫情。
再者，北京声称新疆的拘押营是职业培训设施。现在，新发表的有关强迫堕胎和节制生育的报道进一步提供了与之相反的证据。
另外，北京曾说会给香港人民50年的“高度自治”。但诸位都看见，仅仅23年后出现了什么情况——只是对香港人民和全世界的空头许诺。
我很赞赏谷歌（Google）、脸书（Facebook）和推特（Twitter）拒绝向香港政府交出用户数据——其他公司也应该像他们一样采取同样的做法。
同样很感谢我们的加拿大朋友。加拿大始终以强硬的立场对待北京的镇压行动。我们认为，这是全世界都需要采取的正确态度。
我们同样很高兴地看到，现在英国就华为技术进入他们的系统对英国人民造成的危险进行了积极的辩论。正如联邦调查局（FBI）局长雷（Wray）昨天所说的，华为是“盗窃知识产权的惯犯，一贯采取无视法治和受害者权益的行为”。
我向诸位推荐雷局长昨天发表的全篇讲话。值得一读。司法部长巴尔（Barr）预定今后几天发表系列讲话。然后我会发表第4个系列讲话。
我还希望诸位阅读一下由副国务卿基斯·克拉奇（Keith Krach）起草的一封信，对象是首席执行长、董事会、行业团体、工商投资公司等，提醒他们注意中国共产党在新疆使用奴隶劳动的问题，并且为他们提供一系列管理建议，了解应该如何保证他们不会成为这种恶劣行为的帮凶。
关于中国的最后一点：最近中国共产党在全球环境基金（Global Environment Facility）的一次会议上提出与不丹的边界纠纷问题。
从喜马拉雅山山脉（Himalayas）、越南的专属区（Exclusive Zone）水域到尖阁列岛（Senkaku Islands）等地，北京一再挑起领土争端。全世界不应该允许出现这种霸道行为，也不应该允许这种行为继续下去。
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问：……。
你昨天说，本届政府正在考虑禁止抖音（TikTok）。我想知道这项考虑有多确实。印度几乎不加多少思索在一夜之间就禁止了它。我们可以期待禁令多快生效？
国务卿蓬佩奥：那么在与欧盟会谈方面，我们确实对考虑如何去做取得了一些进展。因此这不太可能是一种时开时停的做法——也就是说，我们会努力设置一些程序和规程，保护美国公民这里不出现传播。这是一个全球挑战，我们也希望确保欧洲公民不会因来自西边的旅行而受到不利影响。许多人不是仅来自美国，而是经由美国前往欧洲，所以我们必须处理与此相关的各种复杂情况。
我们取得了一些切实进展，技术性进展，现在我们需要得出一个结果。然后将会有一个系统，一个监视和衡量系统，以确保我们正确地把握时间，正确地启动转换开关。大西洋两岸都希望重新开放。双方都知道我们的经济有赖于它，有赖于深厚的重要关系，跨大西洋关系事关重要。这两方西方民主体有许多需要共同从事的有益工作，将那些旅行交接点重新连接起来是件重要的事。
谈到抖音，我想将它放到一个更广的范围来谈。我们一直在进行不断评估，以便确保美国公民的隐私和信息在传输时得到保护，因此，这不是仅仅关系到任何某一个商家公司，而是关系到美国的国家安全，我们在努力予以正确处理。我在本周早些时候对某个具体公司的评论，属于我们评估中国共产党的威胁的范畴。我们在谈到中兴的时候谈到这点，我们在谈到华为的时候谈到这点，我们现在正在评估每一个我们认为涉及美国公民手机或系统或医疗档案中的信息的情况——我们要确保不让中国共产党有可能轻易得到那些信息。
因此，你们将看到本届政府所做的是，采取行动维护和保护那些信息，不让中国共产党得到属于美国人的私人信息。我们有一个——这是一个大项目，因为我们在全世界都有合作伙伴，那些地方的基础设施与中国技术交错，而后来到美国，因此应该把这看成是一个有确实规模和确实重要性的项目。我们必须做好。未来百年的基础设施必须是一个基于西方私有财产理念和以透明方式保护公民个人信息的通讯基础设施。这不是中国共产党的软件和硬件公司使用的模式。
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问：谢谢你，国务卿。跟进一下你有关北京煽动边界争端的模式的讲话，你知道同——对印度发生的情况，中国的挑衅，在列城（Leh），在拉达克（Ladakh）针对印度的行为。目前对印度和中国之间的局势的评估是什么？
国务卿蓬佩奥：我已同外交部长苏杰生（Jaishankar）就此进行了数次交谈。中方采取了令人难以置信的挑衅行为。印度方面尽了最大努力予以应对。我会将此放在习近平总书记及其在整个地区、乃至全世界的行为的背景之下。它是——我认为不可能孤立地看待中国共产党的那一具体的挑衅事例。我认为你们应当将其置于大背景之下。
当我上次来到这里的时候，我们谈到了中国共产党介入的一系列海事及边界争端。我认为在全世界其他任何地方都没有这种情况。没有多少邻国能够满意地说他们知道他们的主权的边界，而且中国共产党将尊重这一主权。现在不丹人民显然也面临这种情况。
这就是全世界必须共同予以应对的。中国共产党所采取的这种日益严重的修正型行为正是特朗普总统（President Trump）极其严肃地对待的问题。美国的前几届政府都没有这样做。我们将以我们认为合适的方式对此进行回应，而且我们已努力向中国领导层表明我们严肃地对待这个问题。当我说“我们”时，不仅是指美国。我们将很快开始同我们在欧盟的朋友就我们如何能够集体应对中国共产党构成的这种挑战展开一次对话。
我相信，我相信这次——我认为这种病毒从中国武汉传播的情况——我认为全世界已经看到中国共产党的真面目，而且我比以往任何时候都坚信，全世界自由的人民将逐步理解这所构成的威胁不仅是在中国内部，而且重要的是，习总书记对世界的影响不利于自由的人民和热爱民主的人民，而且全世界将团结一致地以一种强有力的、重要的方式对此予以应对，并将以我们都习以为常的、惠及全世界所有人民的方式来维护依据法治行事的主权国家。
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July 8, 2020
Press Briefing Room
Washington, D.C.
SECRETARY POMPEO:  Good morning, everyone.  Hope everybody had a great 4th of July celebrating the founding of this great country, and a week from today I’ll be in Philadelphia talking about the work of the Unalienable Rights Commission.  I’m looking forward to that. 
A belated happy birthday to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who celebrated his 85th birthday on Monday of this week.
And a big welcome to Mexico’s President Lopez Obrador, who is in Washington today to celebrate the landmark USMCA trade deal coming into force alongside President Trump.  I spoke with the foreign minister yesterday.  I’m looking forward to seeing him here in just a little bit as well.  I think we’ll have a great set of meetings over at the White House later on today.
On Monday, Egypt released U.S. citizen Mohamed Amashah, who had been detained since March of 2019.
Mohamed is one of many Americans President Trump’s administration has worked tirelessly to get back home, and we thank Egypt for securing his release and his repatriation.
But at the same time, we urge Egyptian officials to stop unwarranted harassment of U.S. citizens and their families who remain there.
I want to start today with the Chinese Communist Party.
As with all unelected, communist regimes, Beijing fears its own people’s free thinking more than any foreign foe.
We were deeply troubled to learn this week that the CCP detained Xu Zhangrun for criticizing General Secretary Xi Jinping’s repressive regime and the CCP’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.  He should be released.  He was simply telling the truth.  He should be released as soon as possible.
I’ll repeat a theme I’ve been talking about for months:  The CCP has an enormous credibility problem.  They failed to tell the world the truth about this virus, and now hundreds of thousands of peoples all across the world are dead.  We need the truth; we still need the truth.  We need to open up.  We need to engage in a serious way with scientists around the world.  And they now say they’re going to allow the WHO to come in.  That’s great, but the WHO needs to be free to do its real work.  We need to make sure the right people are there to engage in this investigation, and we need real answers, not a perfunctory political solution.  This is about science, not politics, and the Chinese Communist Party needs to come clean with the world about this virus.
Beijing claimed for months that it reported the outbreak of the virus to the WHO.  Now we know that’s not true, too.  We know that the WHO’s Country Office in China reported the outbreak only after it picked up a media statement from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission.
Again, Beijing describes Xinjiang’s internment camps as vocational training camps.  New reports of forced abortions and sterilizations add to a body of evidence that contradicts that.
And Beijing said that for 50 years they’d give the people of Hong Kong “a high degree of autonomy.”  And you all have seen what’s happened after only 23 years – empty promises made to the people of Hong Kong and to the world.
I want to give kudos to Google, Facebook, and Twitter for refusing to surrender user data to the Hong Kong government – other companies should follow them and do the same.
And a shoutout to our Canadian friends as well.  Canada has been strong in its response to Beijing’s crackdown.  We think that’s the right course for the entire world to take.
We’re heartened to see too the United Kingdom have their vigorous debate now on the risk presented to the British people from Huawei technology being in their systems.  As FBI Director Wray said yesterday, Huawei is, quote, “a serial intellectual property thief, with a pattern and practice of disregarding both the rule of law and the rights of its victims.”
I commend to you Director Wray’s entire speech yesterday.  It is worth the time to watch.  Attorney General Barr will deliver a set of remarks in the coming days, and then I’ll give what will be the fourth in a series of remarks. 
I want to direct everyone also to a letter that Under Secretary Keith Krach drafted to CEOs, boards of directors, trade groups, commercial investment firms alerting them to the CCP’s use of slave labor in Xinjiang, and providing them with a set of governance recommendations for how they should ensure that they are not part and parcel of this terrible practice.
Last China item:  The CCP recently filed a boundary dispute with Bhutan at a meeting of the Global Environment Facility.
From the mountain ranges of the Himalayas to the waters of Vietnam’s Exclusive Zone, to the Senkaku Islands, and beyond, Beijing has a pattern of instigating territorial disputes.  The world shouldn’t allow this bullying to take place, nor should it permit it to continue.
To the Middle East:
On Monday, Iraq tragically lost a patriot, prominent scholar, and journalist when Hisham al-Hashimi was brutally assassinated in front of his home in Baghdad.
Dr. Hashimi had devoted his life to a free and sovereign Iraq, and gave voice to the aspirations of the Iraqi people.  In the days leading up to his death, he was repeatedly threatened by Iran-backed armed groups.
And the United States joins partner nations in strongly condemning his assassination, and call for the Government of Iraq to bring to justice the perpetrators of this terrible crime and bring them swiftly to justice.
In Syria, the actions of the Assad regime, Russia, and China to constrict the flow of lifesaving supplies, medicine, and food have exacerbated an already terrible humanitarian situation on the ground.
Just yesterday, Russia and China once again vetoed action at the UN Security Council that would have maintained humanitarian access to desperate Syrian communities. 
Over the last several months, Russia and the People’s Republic of China have repeatedly abused their veto powers in the council to support the Assad regime strategy of starving its own people. 
Their calculus is clear.  They believe there is no price to pay for their actions to the Security Council.  They believe their partnership with the Assad regime will render political and economic benefits that outweigh any cost of conscience or moral obligation.
It’s our job, the responsible nations of the world, to increase those costs, document the human impact of these decisions, and use this example to remind the world of what these two regimes stand for.
I also want to address the deteriorating and immobile oil storage vessel, the Safer, that’s floating off in the Red Sea.  Some of you will remember I have spoken about this before, I think.
The tanker contains four times the oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster.
If it ruptures, it will devastate the Red Sea ecosystem and disrupt key shipping lanes in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb.  A disaster like that could prevent desperately needed food aid from reaching a Yemeni population already in terrible, dire conditions.
The Houthis have blocked UN officials who need to board the vessel and to do – in order that they may do the work necessary to prevent massive environmental damage throughout the region.  The Houthis must grant access before this ticking time bomb explodes.
And speaking of the Houthis, and bombs:
Last week, a United Nations report confirmed that the weapons shipments the United States interdicted back in November of 2019 and then again in February of this year were of Iranian origin.  You’ll recall that when we said that, the Iranians denied it.  The UN has now confirmed this.  Iran is not abiding by the UN arms embargo restrictions that are due to expire in less than four months now.
Now, we have interdicted another shipment of weapons heading to the Houthis.
On June 28th, U.S. and partner forces interdicted a vessel off the coast of Yemen with illicit cargo including 200 RPGs, more than 1,700 AK rifles, 21 – 21 surface-to-air and land-attack missiles, several anti-tank missiles, and other advanced weapons and missiles.
The Security Council must extend the arms embargo on Iran to prevent further conflict in the region.  No serious person can possibly believe Iran would use any weapon it receives for peaceful ends.
Contrast the Islamic Republic of Iran’s illegal gun running with America’s work to help our allies and partners defend themselves:
On Monday – on Monday we notified Congress of $7.5 billion worth of defense sales.  From new rotorcraft capabilities for countries like Lithuania and Indonesia, to new ISR platforms for NATO ally France, to increased infantry mobility in the Stryker platform for Argentina, the United States is meeting the high demand for our allies and partners for American gear to defend their nations.
We are strengthening our security partnerships, building capacity, and supporting the American manufacturing base.
And now turning to Africa:
We’re making progress in helping Sudan’s transition to a more democratic and peaceful way of life.
At the Sudan Partnership Conference back on June 25th, the United States announced it will provide $356.2 million to support the Sudan democratic transition, including more than $85 million in development and COVID-19 assistance.
And finally – I’ll close here – as one of our expanding security relationship with the Republic of Cyprus, for the first time, the Department of State intends to provide International Military Education and Training funding to that country, contingent on congressional appropriations and our notification of Congress.
This is part of our efforts to enhance relationships with key regional partners to promote stability in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Happy to take some questions.
MS ORTAGUS:  Nadia, go ahead.
QUESTION:  Good morning, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY POMPEO:  Nadia, hi.
QUESTION:  You oppose the release of Mr. Kassim Tajideen although you said that you abide by the court decision.  Does this hinder your effort to go after high-target violence here of Hizballah, like Mr. Tajideen?  And what does it say to the people who oppose Hizballah and the people who are trying to give them – support them financially?  And in that regard, for the first time we hear Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the group, yesterday saying that he welcomes U.S. assistance to the Lebanese Government.  Do you see that – although he said U.S. is an enemy.  But do you see this as a way of trying to open some kind of dialogue with the U.S., considering that they release this person, Mr. Tajideen?
SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah.  So we do everything we can to enforce the sanctions that we have put in place against terrorist figures, including those who have been designated under Hizballah designations.  We’ve urged other countries to designate Hizballah terrorist organization as well.  We continue to believe that they present an enormous risk, and their behavior indicates that they are in fact a terrorist organization that is intent on causing harm to the West, and most in particular to our partner and ally in the region, Israel.
Second, I didn’t see the remarks that you described from Nasrallah.  I did see him say that they should take Iranian oil.  That I saw.  That would be unacceptable for them to do that.  It would be sanctioned product for sure, and we’ll do everything we can to make sure that Iran cannot continue to sell crude oil anywhere, including to Hizballah in the region so that the resources that fund and underwrite the world’s largest state sponsor of terror won’t be made available to them because they were able to sell some crude oil product or some petroleum product to Hizballah.
QUESTION:  Sorry, just to follow up quickly.  But many people will see the release of Mr. Tajideen as a victory for Hizballah and he might – they might be using it as that and this is why he said we welcome any U.S. assistance and we don’t mind it.
SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah.  There can be no mistake what the United States has done and will continue to do to put pressure on Hizballah and also to try and assist the people of Lebanon at building out a successful government.  The other component here of course is Lebanon’s incredible struggle to conduct the reforms that are necessary to make sure that the Lebanese people who have been protesting in the streets, simply demanding a government that’s not corrupt, that is engaged in behavior that benefits the Lebanese people – that’s our mission set.  Hizballah is a terrorist organization and we are supportive of Lebanon as long as they get the reforms right and they are not a proxy state for Iran in Lebanon.  It would be a very bad thing for the people throughout Lebanon and we hope that doesn’t happen in Beirut.
MS ORTAGUS:  Nick Schifrin.
QUESTION:  Good morning, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY POMPEO:  Hey, Nick.
QUESTION:  Thank you very much.  Can we do WHO and Iran, if I could.
SECRETARY POMPEO:  Sure.  Give it a shot.
QUESTION:  U.S. law mandates that the administration follow through on the financial pledges to the WHO before the withdrawal next year.  Can you tell us how much the U.S. has paid of that and whether you intend to follow through on the commitments? 
And Iran, what’s the message Iranian leaders should draw from the explosion at Natanz?  Do you believe it was accidental or deliberate?
SECRETARY POMPEO:  I’m not going to talk about the second question.  With respect to the first one, we provided notice yesterday to Capitol Hill of our intent to withdraw from the World Health Organization, something we had talked about.  We had communicated to Congress, even in the informal process, that this was our intention. The President – we formally did that from the State Department yesterday consistent with the President’s guidance.  We will work with Congress with respect to the appropriated funds.  We’ll get it right.  But the President has made very clear we are not going to underwrite an organization that has historically been incompetent and not performed its fundamental function.
There’s a real focus on the failures that took place around Wuhan and the World Health Organization’s fundamental inability to perform its basic core mission of preventing a global pandemic spread.  But don’t forget the history.  This is an institution that got it wrong on SARS, it got it wrong on Ebola.  The United States had to create its own system, PEPFAR, to do the work to prevent and come up with solutions to the HIV/AIDS problem.  We did that.  The United States did that.
The World Health Organization has a long history of corruption and politicization.  And it’s not that it doesn’t get some pieces of their program right.  That’s certainly true.  But on balance, this is an organization that has not been able to deliver on its core mission for decades. 
We tried, Nick, desperately, and we in fact got some reforms through back a handful of years ago.  But the WHO leadership clearly has been unable to execute and implement them in a way that can prevent the kind of global pandemic that has destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives and cost the global economy trillions and trillions of dollars.  That is not an organization that the administration has any intention of underwriting.
MS ORTAGUS:  Marina, go ahead.
QUESTION:  Sir, about Brazil.  Do you think President Jair Bolsonaro should change his approach to the virus now that he has tested positive?  And also, when will U.S. allow people who are traveling from Brazil to enter the country?  Is there a number of cases or deaths that Brazil needs to reach in order to that?
SECRETARY POMPEO:  So President Bolsonaro’s perfectly capable of making his own decision about how to proceed with the health situation in his own country.  I spoke with the Foreign Minister Araujo yesterday about that and many other things with respect to our relationship.  They are a great partner and friend of ours. 
As for when we can get travel back open between our two countries, the relationship with Brazil’s no different than any other country.  We are putting in place a set of metrics that will determine when it’s appropriate and safe for the American people to allow travel to come from other countries.  We’ll evaluate each country separately and make informed decisions based on science and reason, not politics.  We’re going to get this right.  We’re going to make sure that we do everything we can to get our economy back open just as quickly as we can.  We have a big team here at State.  We have a big team at Department of Transportation and DHS, the Vice President’s task force all looking at this challenge.  We want to get international travel back up and going just as quickly as we can.  That includes with our great friends in South America, including Brazil.
MS ORTAGUS:  Christian.
QUESTION:  Thanks, Mr. Secretary.  A couple of questions.  First on COVID, curious if we could get some updates on the negotiations to end the travel restrictions with the European Union. 
And then secondly, you said yesterday the administration’s looking at banning TikTok.  I’m curious how serious this ban consideration is.  India banned it almost overnight with very little thought.  And how soon can we expect that to go into effect?
SECRETARY POMPEO:  So with respect to the conversations with the EU, we’ve actually made some progress thinking about how to do that.  So it’s unlikely to be the case that it will be on and off – that is, we will attempt to put in some procedures and protocols that protect both citizens here in the United States from the spread.  And it’s a global challenge and we want to make sure that the European citizens aren’t impacted adversely by travel from the West as well.  Lots of people not only come from America but transit through America to Europe, so we’ve got to deal with all the complexity that comes with it. 
We’ve made some real progress, technical progress, and now we need to draw that to a conclusion.  And then there will be a system, a system to monitor and measure, to make sure that we get the timing right and we get the toggle switches right.  Both sides of the Atlantic want to get this back open.  Both sides understand that our economies depend on it, the deep important relation, the transatlantic relationship matters.  These are two Western democracies that have a lot of good work to do together and getting those travel nodes hooked back up and connected again is an important thing.
With respect to TikTok, I want to put it in the broader context.  We have been engaged in a constant evaluation about ensuring that we protect the privacy of American citizens and their information as it transits, so this doesn’t relate to any one particular business or company but rather to American national security, and we are striving to get that right.  The comments that I made about a particular company earlier this week fall in the context of us evaluating the threat from the Chinese Communist Party.  We’ve talked about it in the context of ZTE, we’ve talked about it in the context of Huawei, and we are now evaluating each instance where we believe that U.S. citizens’ data that they have on their phones or in their system or in their health care records – we want to make sure that the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t have a way to easily access that. 
And so what you’ll see the administration do is take actions that preserve and protect that information and deny the Chinese Communist Party access to the private information that belongs to Americans.  We have a – it’s a big project because we’ve got partners all around the world where infrastructure crosses Chinese technology and then comes to the United States, so one should think about this as a project of real scale and real importance.  We must get this right.  The infrastructure of this next hundred years must be a communications infrastructure that’s based on a Western ideal of private property and protection of private citizens’ information in a transparent way.  That is not the model that Chinese Communist Party software and hardware companies are engaged in.
MS ORTAGUS:  Hudson.
QUESTION:  Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY POMPEO:  Hi.
QUESTION:  Disparate countries —
SECRETARY POMPEO:  You look like you’ve got a great question – just all over your face.  (Laughter.)  I can just see it.
QUESTION:  I try to bring some Midwest optimism to all (inaudible).
SECRETARY POMPEO:  Fantastic.  That’s awesome.  Me too.  (Laughter.)
QUESTION:  Good.  Good. 
So disparate countries from Taiwan to Germany have managed to flatten the curve, but the U.S. has the highest number of cases of COVID in the world.  Do you still believe the U.S. is a world leader on the pandemic? 
And just to put it directly, was the U.S. involved in any way in the Natanz explosion?
SECRETARY POMPEO:  Take your first question – of course the U.S. remains the world leader in the pandemic.  It almost goes without saying, and there are multiple dimensions and I’ve talked about each of them.  Certainly the Vice President’s task force talks about them as well.  But whether that is the technical, scientific solutions both to how to stop the spread; whether that’s therapeutics or vaccines, the world turns its eyes to the best scientists and researchers and practitioners of the sciences that will ultimately bring resolution to this problem.
It’s the United States that the world looks to.  When it comes to countries, small countries, whether that’s in Central Asia or in Africa, their eyes turn to the United States.  It’s not remotely close who has provided the most assistance to these nations to try and solve what are vexing problems in their countries with very little medical infrastructure.  And so yes, there is no doubt that the United States has been and will remain the world’s leader when it comes to not only pandemic response but global health care infrastructure, systems, and processes that take down the very risks that we described. 
It’s good we have friends and partners in this too.  The Western democracies – that model is the one that is most likely to prevail and prevent this kind of thing from happening again.  What we found in China is the Chinese Communist Party was simply incapable – and you see it with the arrest that I referred to in my remarks – they’re incapable of being transparent, of accepting criticism, of allowing reporters to ask them questions that they find uncomfortable that elicit the truth and the facts.  We still have significant questions about who patient zero was.  We’re now six months on at least from when this began and the Chinese Communist Party – that authoritarian model – simply can’t prevent the kind of inquiry or has to prevent that kind of inquiry because they’re afraid.  They’re afraid that the truth will be something that will not shine a happy light on what took place, and so instead they chose to hide and obfuscate and deny basic truth, basic scientific truths about what took place.  This is the – this is a fundamental and fatal flaw for authoritarian regimes and it’s why the Chinese Communist Party has to be held accountable.
And your second question was about the explosion in Natanz.  I don’t have anything to add.
QUESTION:  Do you think the Israelis were involved?
SECRETARY POMPEO:  I just don’t have any comment.  Thanks.
MS ORTAGUS:  Victor, go ahead.
QUESTION:  Thank you.  Now, on the visit of the Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the Mexican delegation has been clear that they want to (inaudible) coronavirus, but I’d like to know if you will put on the table issues like the human rights or human trafficking, your concerns on freedom of the press, for example.  And if I may, I’d like to know the status of the Merida Initiative and the need to upgrade or review the cooperation on antinarcotics or security, especially after the attack to a Mexican official in Mexico City.
SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah.  So it’s the President’s meeting.  He’ll put on the table precisely what he chooses to, and I’m sure President Obrador will do that as well, but I’m confident the meeting will talk about the full range of issues that we work on with the Mexican Government, certainly the economic issues.  We want to talk about our border, how we make sure that we keep that border, that commercial traffic up and successful, very important to American supply chains, Canadian supply chains that you can see come into full force under the USMCA.  We’ve got to make sure we get that right, and so I know they’ll talk about that. 
I’m confident that the full range of issues – I’m sure we’ll talk about issues that aren’t – that expand beyond bilateral as well, things in the hemisphere, right: what’s taking place in Venezuela today, challenges that we find to narcotics trafficking on – in both the Pacific and the Atlantic, places where Mexico can help.  So I’m confident that the full range of issues you asked – you mentioned several others.  I’m very confident that the discussion will be complete and comprehensive.  I expect we’ll have a good set of meetings with him today in the afternoon and then again this evening at the working dinner as well.
With that, I’ve got time for one more.
MS ORTAGUS:  Lalit, go ahead.
QUESTION:  Thank you, Secretary.  Following up on your remarks about Beijing’s pattern of instigating boundary dispute, you know what has happened with – to India, China’s aggression, behavior against India in Leh, in Ladakh.  What is the – what is the assessment of the situation between India and China right now? 
SECRETARY POMPEO:  So I’ve spoken with Foreign Minister Jaishankar a number of times about this.  The Chinese took incredibly aggressive action.  The Indians have done their best to respond to that.  I’d put this in the context of General Secretary Xi Jinping and his behavior throughout the region, and indeed, throughout the world.  It’s – I don’t think it’s possible to look at that particular instance of Chinese Communist Party aggression in isolation.  I think you need to put it in the larger context. 
When I was up here once before, we talked about the number of both maritime and boundary disputes that the Chinese Communist Party has engaged in.  I think it’s unequaled anyplace else in the world.  There aren’t many neighbors that could satisfactorily say that they know where their sovereignty ends and that the Chinese Communist Party will respect that sovereignty.  That’s certainly true now for the people of Bhutan as well.
This is what the world must come together to respond to.  This increasing revisionist effort that the Chinese Communist Party is engaged in is something that President Trump has taken incredibly seriously.  The United States hadn’t done that in previous administrations.  We will respond to this in a way that we think is appropriate, and we have attempted to communicate to the Chinese leadership that we are serious about this.  When I say “we,” it’s not just the United States.  We will start very shortly a dialogue with our EU friends on how we collectively can respond to this challenge from the Chinese Communist Party.
And I am confident, I’m confident that this – I think what’s happened with the spread of this virus from Wuhan, China – I think the world has seen the true colors of the Chinese Communist Party, and I am convinced more than ever that the free peoples of the world will come to understand the threat that’s presented not only internally inside of China, but importantly, that the impact that General Secretary Xi has on the world is not good for free peoples and democracy-loving peoples, and the world will come together to respond to that in a way that is powerful and important and will preserve sovereign nations operating under the rule of law in the way that we have all come accustomed to and benefits people all across the world.
MS ORTAGUS:  Okay.
QUESTION:  May I do a follow-up on —
SECRETARY POMPEO:  Thank you.  I’m sorry, I’m going to have to take off.  Thanks, everybody.  Have a good day.