“共产主义中国和自由世界的未来”
2020年7月23日 
迈克尔·R·蓬佩奥国务卿 (Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State)
理查德·尼克松总统图书馆暨博物馆（Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum）
加利福尼亚州约巴林达 (Yorba Linda, California)
谢谢诸位。谢谢大家。州长，谢谢你非常、非常热情的介绍。说得对：当你走进那所体育馆，说到“蓬佩奥”这个名字，就会引起一阵喁喁低语。我有个兄弟，名叫马克，很优秀——名符其实的优秀篮球选手。
是不是应该再一次为蓝鹰仪仗队（Blue Eagles Honor Guard）和空军下士凯拉·海史密斯（ Kayla Highsmith）鼓掌，她国歌唱得这么动听？（掌声）
劳里（Laurie）牧师，也谢谢你发表了如此感人的祈祷词。谢谢休·休伊特（Hugh Hewitt）和尼克松基金会（Nixon Foundation）邀请我在这个重要的美国机构发表讲话。很高兴能够听一位空军人员演唱，由一位海军陆战队（Marine）队员做介绍，然后他们让一名陆军（Army）大兵站在海军（Navy）水兵的住宅前。（笑声）一切都很完美。
来到约巴林达感到很荣幸。尼克松的父亲建造了这所房子，他就在这里出生和长大。
感谢尼克松中心（Nixon Center）全体董事和工作人员使今天成为可能——在这些时候很不容易——感谢今天为我和我的团队做出的安排。
我们有幸见到一些十分不寻常的人物在座，其中有克里斯（Chris），我已经认识了——克里斯·尼克松（Chris Nixon）。我还感谢特利西娅·尼克松（Tricia Nixon）和朱莉·尼克松·艾森豪威尔（Julie Nixon Eisenhower）对这次访问的支持。
我还感谢几位勇敢的中国持不同政见者今天出席我们在这里举行的活动，他们不远万里来到现场。
对于其他所有尊敬的来宾——（掌声）——对于其他所有尊敬的来宾，感谢诸位亲莅现场。有些人得到帐篷下的位置，一定有更多的付出。
对于观看现场转播的观众，谢谢你们的观看。
最后，州长谈到我在本地的圣安娜（Santa Ana）出生，离这里不太远。今天我姐姐和她丈夫也在座。感谢你们都来到现场。我可以肯定，你们从来也想不到我会站在这里。
我今天的讲话是有关中国的系列讲话的第四部分。我已经请国家安全事务助理（National Security Advisor O’Brien）罗伯特·奥布赖恩（Robert O’Brien）、联邦调查局（FBI）局长克里斯·雷（Chris Wray）和司法部长（Attorney General）巴尔（Barr）与我一起发表这个系列讲话。
我们有一个十分明确的目的，一项确切的使命，即阐明美国与中国关系各个不同的则面，数十年来相互关系中积累的巨大不平衡，以及中国共产党的霸权图谋。
我们的目标是明确指出特朗普总统（President Trump）的中国政策要求解决的问题，即对美国人民构成的种种威胁已经显而易见，以及我们为保障这些已经确立的自由制定的战略。
奥布赖恩大使谈的是意识形态。联邦调查局局长雷谈的是间谍问题。司法部长巴尔谈的是经济。我今天的任务是为美国人民提供综合性的阐述，详细谈谈中国构成的威胁对我们的经济、我们的自由，确切地说对世界各地自由民主政体的未来意味着什么。
明年距基辛格（Kissinger）博士秘密访华恰好半个世纪。距2022年尼克松总统访华50周年也并不太远。
当年的世界迥然不同。
我们曾设想与中国接触可以为今后带来有望实现相互尊重与合作的光明前景。
但是今天——今天我们坐在这里都需要戴口罩，眼看着疫情的人数统计节节上升，都是因为中国共产党未履行对全世界的诺言。我们每天早上都可以看到有关香港和新疆镇压事件的头条新闻。
我们看到披露中国贸易劣迹的数据触目惊心，导致美国丧失工作机会，使全美国各地的经济受到沉重打击，其中也包括南加利福尼亚州。我们看到中国军队日渐坐大，确实也更具有威胁性。
从加利福尼亚州这里，到我的家乡堪萨斯州（Kansa）及其他各地，美国人民心中萦绕的种种问题也在我头脑中回响：
经过与中国50年的接触，美国人民有哪些可以展示的成效？
我们的领导人设想中国向自由和民主演变的理论是否得到证实？
难道这就是中国界定的“双赢”局面？
毋庸置疑，作为核心问题，身为国务卿需要考虑，美国是否安全无虞？我们是否有更大的可能为我们自己缔造和平，为我们今后的世世代代缔造和平？
为此，我们不得不承认一个严酷的事实。我们如果希望有一个自由的21世纪，而不是习近平梦想的中国世纪，我们必须承认一个今后多年，甚至数十年应为我们提供指导的严酷事实：与中国盲目接触的陈旧模式完全不能奏效。我们决不能继续走这条路。我们决不能重蹈覆辙。
特朗普总统已十分明确地指出，我们须要有一个保护美国经济，而且切实保护我们生活方式的战略。自由世界必须战胜新的暴政。
如此看来，我有些迫不及待想放弃尼克松总统遗留的思想，但是我首先需要明确一点，当时他做了他认为对美国人民最有利的事情，而且他也有可能完全是正确的。
他是中国问题的优秀学者，是冷战（Cold War）时期的勇猛斗士，同时对中国人民心怀高度崇敬，我认为我们大家也有同样的心情。
他无愧于创立的巨大功绩，因为他使人们认识到中国十分重要，不可忽视，甚至在这个国家因自行制造的共产主义暴行而被削弱的时期也是如此。
1967年，尼克松在外交事务（Foreign Affairs）杂志发表了一篇十分著名的文章，阐明了他未来的战略。以下是他的表述：
他写道，“长期而言，我们完全无法承受将中国永远置身于国际大家庭之外的情况……只有中国发生变革，全世界才能安全。为此，我们的目标是——在我们能力所及的范围内，我们必须对事态施加影响。我们的目标应该是促成变革。”
我认为整篇文章的关键词是：“促成变革”。
所以，尼克松总统通过对北京具有历史意义的访问，启动了我们的接触战略。他义不容辞地要求增进世界的自由与安全。他希望中国共产党也能投桃报李给予响应。
随着时间的推移，美国决策人员越来越强烈地认为，中国实现更大的繁荣，就会实行开放，国内就会更自由，同时对海外构成的威胁确实也会减轻，更能够友好相处。我相信，这一切看上去都势在必行。
但是笃信必然的时代已经结束。我们一味追求的接触并没有按尼克松总统的希望促成中国内部的变革。
实际情况是，我们的政策——以及其他自由国家的政策——救活了中国破败的经济，结果却发现北京对国际社会伸出的援助之手反咬一口。
我们向中国公民敞开胸怀，结果却发现中国共产党趁机利用我们自由和开放的社会。中国派宣传人员进入我们的各种记者会、我们的各类研究中心、我们各地的高中、我们的各类学院，甚至参加家长教师协会的会议。
我们使我们台湾的朋友被边缘化。台湾后来实现了繁荣，成为蓬勃发展的民主政体。
我们给予中国共产党及其政权以特别的经济待遇，结果却发现中国共产党坚持要求对其侵犯人权的行为保持沉默，作为允许西方公司进入中国的条件。
奥布赖恩大使前两天举了几个例子：万豪酒店（Marriott） 、美国航空（American）、 达美航空（Delta）、联合航空（United Airlines）等公司都把台湾的名称从它们的网页上取消，为的是不触怒北京。
在好莱坞（Hollywood），离这里不远——美国创作自由的中心，自定的社会正义评判者——对哪怕是涉及最轻微的不利中国的内容都实行自我审查。
商家对中共的这种默许也发生在世界各地。
这种商家忠诚的功效如何？这种恭维得到回报了吗？我要引述司法部长巴尔讲话中的一句话。他在上周的讲话中说，“中国统治者最终的野心不是与美国进行贸易，而是掠劫美国。”
中国偷取我们宝贵的知识产权和贸易机密，使全美丧失千百万份工作。
它吸走了美国的供应链，然后将奴工制作的小产品添加进来。
它使世界重要航道对国际商务的安全性降低。
尼克松总统曾说，他担心，他将世界向中共敞开会造出一个把创造者毁灭的怪物“弗兰肯斯泰因”（“Frankenstein”），而现在我们面对这种情况。
那么，有诚意的人可以辩论，为什么一些自由国家会允许这些糟糕的情况这么多年一直发生。也许是我们对中国的共产主义毒株太天真，也许是我们在冷战胜利后的必胜信念，也许是怯懦的资本主义，也许是受北京“和平崛起”之说的蒙蔽。
不管什么原因——不管什么原因，今天中国正在国内加剧专制，并在其他所有地方更咄咄逼人地与自由为敌。
特朗普总统说：够了。
我认为两党不会有很多人不同意我们今天阐述的事实。但即使现在，有些人仍坚持我们应该为了对话而保持对话模式。
明确一点，我们将继续对谈。但是这些日子的对谈是不一样的。就在几周前我到檀香山（Honolulu）与杨洁篪举行了会晤。
还是老一套——说得很多，但完全没有提出要改变任何行为。
杨的承诺，如同他以前许多中国共产党的承诺一样，是空洞的。他期待的是，我推测，我会对他们的要求让步，因为坦率说，这是太多届前任政府的做法。我没有，特朗普总统也不会。
正如奥布赖恩大使做的很好的解释，我们必须牢记中国共产党政权是一个马克思主义-列宁主义政权。总书记习近平是彻底失败的极权主义意识形态的真实信仰者。
是这种意识形态，是这种意识形态形成了他几十年来的愿望，要中国共产主义在全球称霸。美国不能再无视我们两国间的根本政治和意识形态差异，就像中国共产党从未无视它们一样。
我在众议院情报委员会（House Intelligence Committee）的经历，而后担任中央情报局局长（Central Intelligence Agency），以及现在两年多来担任美国国务卿，让我得到这样一个关键认识：
唯一方式——让共产主义中国真正改变的唯一方式是，不要基于中国领导人所言而是基于他们的所为而采取行动。你们将看到与这一结论相应的美国政策。里根（Reagan）总统说，他与苏联打交道是基于“信任但核实”。在对待中国共产党的问题上，我说我们必须不信任并核实。（掌声）
我们，世界热爱自由的国家，必须促成中国的变革，就像尼克松总统所希望的那样。我们必须以更有创意和更坚定的方式促成中国的变革，因为北京的行动威胁我们的人民和我们的繁荣。
我们必须从改变我们的人民和我们的伙伴对中国共产党的看法做起。我们必须说出事实。我们不能将中国作为像任何其他国家一样的正常国家对待。
我们知道与中国进行贸易与和一个正常守法的国家进行贸易不同。北京威胁国际协议——把国际建议当作——把协议当作建议，当作主宰全球的通道。
但是，通过坚持公平条件，正像我们的贸易代表在达成我们第一阶段贸易协议时所做的，我们能够迫使中国必须考虑它盗窃知识产权和它损害美国劳工的政策的后果。
我们也知道，与中国共产党支持的公司做生意与，比方说，一家加拿大公司做生意不一样。这些公司不对独立的董事会负责，其中许多公司得到国家的资助，因此不需要追求盈利。
华为是一个好例子。我们不再假装华为是一个清白的电信通讯公司，只是来这里保证让你能够与朋友对谈。我们实事求是地称呼它——一个真正的国家安全威胁——并且已经采取相应行动。
我们也知道，如果我们的公司在中国投资，他们可能有意或无意地为共产党严重践踏人权提供支持。
因此，我们的财政部和商务部已经对侵害和践踏世界各地人的最基本权利的中国领导人和实体实施了制裁，并将它们列入黑名单。数个机构已为制定一项商务警告作出共同努力，以确保让我们的首席执行长们知道他们的供应链在中国国内的行为方式。
我们还知道，我们还知道，并非所有中国学生和雇员都是为来这里赚点钱和获取一些知识的普通学生和雇员。他们当中有太多人来这里是为了偷窃我们的知识产权并将其带回他们的国家。
司法部和其他机构已经在积极追踪惩罚这些犯罪。
我们知道人民解放军也不是一支正常的军队。它的目的是维护中国共产党上层的绝对统治和扩大中国帝国，而不是保护中国人民。
因此，我们的国防部已加大努力，在整个东中国海和南中国海（East and South China Seas）以及台湾海峡（Taiwan Strait）展开自由航行行动。我们成立了太空军（Space Force），在这个最后的前沿帮助遏制中国的挑衅。
因此，坦率说，我们在国务院已经制定出一套新的对应中国的政策，推动特朗普总统的公平和对等的目标，修正几十年来形成的不平衡。
就在本周，我们宣布关闭中国在休斯顿（Houston）的领事馆，因为那里是间谍和盗窃知识产权活动的一个集合点。（掌声）
我们在两周前扭转了八年来在南中国海国际法问题上一再忍让的做法。
我们要求中国使其核能力符合我们时代的战略现实。
国务院——在世界各地各级——都在与中国的对口官员接触，要求做到公平和对等。
但是，我们的方式不能只是围绕变得更强硬。那样不可能达到我们所要的结果。我们还必须与中国人民接触和赋予他们能力——他们是充满活力、热爱自由的人民，与中国共产党完全不同。
这要始于面对面的外交（掌声）。我在一切所到之处都见到才华优秀和勤奋的男女中国人。
我会晤过逃离新疆集中营的维吾尔族人和少数民族哈萨克人。我与从陈主教（Cardinal Zen）到黎智英（Jimmy Lai）的香港民主领袖谈过话。两天前在伦敦，我与香港自由斗士罗冠聪（Nathan Law）见了面。
上个月在我的办公室，我听到了天安门广场幸存者的经历。他们当中有一位今天在座。
王丹是当时一位关键的学生，他从未停止为中国人民的自由而斗争。王先生，能否请你站起来让我们认识你？（掌声）
今天和我们在一起的还有中国民主运动之父魏京生。他因自己的主张而在中国劳改营度过了几十年。魏先生，能否请你站起来？（掌声）
我在冷战期间长大并曾在陆军服役。如果说我学到了一点的话，那就是共产主义者几乎总是说谎。他们所说的最大的谎言就是认为他们是在为受到监控、迫害、不敢大声直言的14亿人民说话。
恰恰相反的是，中国共产党对中国人民的诚实意见的惧怕超出了它对任何一个对头的惧怕，除了担心他们自己丧失对权力的控制，他们有原因——别无其他原因。
试想一下，如果我们当初能听到武汉医生们的话，而且他们能获准对新出现的新型病毒疫情爆发一事发出警报，那么整个世界会好多少——更不用说中国国内的人民了。
在数十年来太长的时间里，我们的领导人对于勇敢的中国异议人士向我们发出的有关我们所面对的这一政权的本质的警告无动于衷或轻描淡写。
我们不能再无视于此了。他们像其他任何人一样地清楚，我们绝不能再回到维持现状的局面。
但改变中国共产党的行为方式不应仅仅是中国人民的使命。自由国家也必须努力捍卫自由。这远非轻而易举之事。
但我坚信我们做得到。我有信心，因为我们曾经这样做过。我们知道这会如何发展。
我有信心，因为中国共产党正在重复某些苏联犯过的错误——疏远潜在的盟友，破坏国内及国外的信任，拒绝实行产权和可预知的法治。 
我有信心。我有信心是因为我看到其他国家的觉醒，像我们在美国这里一样知道我们不能回到过去。我听到过这种声音，从布鲁塞尔（Brussels）到悉尼（Sydney），再到河内（Hanoi）。
而且最重要的是，我坚信我们能够捍卫自由，因为自由本身所具有的美好的感召力。
请看香港民众在中国共产党收紧对这座骄傲的城市的控制时高声要求移民海外。他们曾挥舞着美国国旗。
是的，的确存在不同之处。与苏联不同的是，中国已经深深地融入全球经济中。但北京对我们的依赖超出了我们对他们的依赖。（掌声）
我拒绝接受认为我们生活在一个必然如此的时代的说法，以及某些陷阱是预先注定的，还有中国共产党的至上地位就是未来。我们的做法并非因美国正在衰落而注定要失败。正如我今年早些时候在慕尼黑所言，自由世界仍在取得胜利。我们只需要相信这一点，知道这一点，并为此感到自豪。世界各地的人们仍然希望来到开放的社会。他们来这里学习，他们来这里工作，他们来这里为他们的家人打造生活。而他们并不急于到中国定居。
现在是时候了。今天很高兴来到这里。时机正好。现在是自由国家采取行动的时候了。并非每个国家都将以同样的方式应对中国，他们也不应如此。每个国家都必须自己得出如何保护自己的主权、如何保护自己的经济繁荣，以及如何保护其理念不遭中国共产党的触角裹挟的结论。
但我敦促每一个国家的每一位领导人都开始做美国已经在做的——就是坚持要求中国共产党做到对等、透明和负责。他们是一伙远非同质化的统治者。
这些简明有力的标准将会产生极大的成果。我们听任中国共产党来制定接触规则已为时太久了，但不再会是这样。自由国家必须确定基调。我们必须基于同样的原则运作。
我们必须划定不会被中共的讨价还价或他们的花言巧语所侵蚀的共同界线。事实上，这正是美国最近所做的，我们彻底地拒绝接受中国在南中国海的非法索求，而且我们还敦促有关国家成为洁净国家（Clean Countries），以使他们的公民的私人信息不会落入中国共产党的手中。我们是通过设定标准来做到的。
是的，这是难以做到的。这对于一些小国而言是难以做到的。他们害怕遭到逐一封杀。有些国家正是出于这个原因而根本就没有能力，没有勇气在此时此刻同我们站在一起。
的确，我们的一个北约（NATO）盟国在香港问题上没有以其应有的方式挺身而出，因为他们害怕北京会限制他们进入中国市场。这种怯懦将导致历史性失败，而我们不能重蹈覆辙。
我们不能再犯过去这些年的错误。中国构成的挑战要求民主国家——欧洲、非洲、南美洲、特别是印度-太平洋（Indo-Pacific）地区的民主国家——付出努力和精力。
如果我们现在不采取行动，中国共产党最终将侵蚀我们的自由，并颠覆我们各国社会辛苦努力地建立起来的基于规则的秩序。如果我们现在屈膝退让，我们的子孙后代就可能受制于中国共产党，而他们的行为对当今自由世界构成了首要挑战。
习总书记并非注定能永久地在中国内外施行暴政，除非我们允许这种情况发生。
而这无关于遏制。不要听信于此。这关系到我们过去从来没有面对过的一种错综复杂的新挑战。苏联当时与自由世界隔绝。但共产党中国已在我们的国境之内。
因此，我们不能单独面对这一挑战。联合国（United Nations）、北约、7国（G7）集团国家、20国（G20）集团，以及我们联合使用经济、外交和军事力量，肯定足以应对这一挑战，如果我们明确地加以调动并拿出巨大勇气的话。
也许现在是时候了，应当结成一个志同道合的国家的新联盟，一个新的民主国家的同盟。
我们拥有这些工具。我知道我们能够做到。而现在我们需要的是意愿。我要引用圣经经文，难道“我们的心灵固然愿意，肉体却软弱了？”
如果自由世界不去改变——不去改变，共产主义中国肯定将会改变我们。不能仅仅因为过去的做法安逸或便利就重蹈覆辙。
保护我们的自由不受中国共产党的危害是我们这个时代的使命，而美国正处于引领这一使命的最佳地位，因为我们的建国原则给予了我们这样的机会。
正如我上周在费城（Philadelphia）站在、注视着独立纪念馆（Independence Hall）时所阐明的，我们的国家建立在人人享有特定的不可剥夺的权利的基础之上。
保障这些权利是我们的政府的职责。这是一个简明而有力的事实。它已使我们成为全世界人民的一座自由的灯塔，其中包括中国国内的人民。
理查德·尼克松于1967年所写的话的确是正确的：“只有中国发生变革，全世界才能安全。”现在要靠我们来听从他的话语了。
今天，危险显而易见。
而且今天，觉醒正在发生。
今天，自由世界必须回应。
我们绝不能走回头路。
愿上帝保佑你们每一个人。
愿上帝保佑中国人民。
愿上帝保佑美利坚合众国人民。
谢谢大家。
阅读更多：https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/communist-china-and-the-free-worlds-future/

SPEECH
MICHAEL R. POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE
YORBA LINDA, CALIFORNIA
THE RICHARD NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
JULY 23, 2020
GOVERNOR WILSON: Well, thank you very much, Chris. Most generous. I’m not sure your grandfather would have recognized me.
I have the great pleasure – in addition to welcoming all of you to the Nixon birthplace and library, I have the great pleasure of introducing to you an extraordinary American who is here at an extraordinary time. But the fun of it is in introducing our honored guest, I also am welcoming him not just to the Nixon Library, but I’m welcoming him back home to Orange County. (Applause.) That’s right. Mike Pompeo was born in Orange. (Applause.)
He attended Los Amigos High School in Fountain Valley, where he was an outstanding student and athlete. In fact, I have it on good authority that among the fans of glory days of Lobo basketball, a reverent hush descends upon the crowd whenever the name “Pompeo” is mentioned. (Laughter.)
The Secretary was first in his class at West Point. He won the award as the most distinguished cadet. He won another award for the highest achievement in engineering management. He spent his active duty years, his Army years, in West Germany, and as he put it, patrolling the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In 1988 – excuse me – retiring with a rank of captain, he went on to Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review. In 1988, he returned to his mother’s home state of Kansas and began a stunningly successful business career. He was elected to the House of Representatives from Kansas in 2011, where he soon gained great respect for a reputation as one of the most diligent and astute members of the House Arms – excuse me, the House Intelligence Committee.
In 2017, President Trump nominated him to be the director of Central Intelligence. And in 2018, he was confirmed as our 70th Secretary of State.
You have to admit, that’s quite an impressive resume. So it’s sad there’s only one thing missing, prevents it from being perfect. If only Mike had been a Marine. (Laughter.) Don’t worry, he’ll get even.
Mike Pompeo is a man devoted to his family. He is a man of faith, of the greatest patriotism and the highest principle. One of his most important initiatives at the State Department has been the creation of a Commission on Unalienable Rights where academicians, philosophers, and ethicists advise him on human rights grounded in America’s founding principles and the principles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Rights.
He is here today for a very special reason. The epitaph on President Nixon’s gravestone is a sentence from his first inaugural address. It says, quote, “The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.” Richard Nixon received that title. He won that honor not only because he was acknowledged even by his critics to be a brilliant foreign policy strategist, but it was far more because he earned it. He learned as congressman, senator, president, and every day thereafter as a private citizen ambassador that peace is not achieved by signing documents and declaring the job done. To the contrary, he knew that peace is always a work in progress. He knew that peace must be fought for and won anew in every generation.
It was President Nixon’s vision, determination, and courage that opened China to America and to the Western world. As president and for the rest of his life, Richard Nixon worked to build a relationship with China based upon mutual benefits and obligations that respected America’s bedrock national interests.
Today, we in America are obliged to assess whether or not President Nixon’s labors and his hopes for such a relationship have been met or whether they are being undermined.
That is why it is of such great significance that our honored guest, Secretary Pompeo, has chosen the Nixon Library from which to deliver a major China policy statement. It will, I promise you, be a statement of complete clarity delivered with force and with belief because it is of critical importance.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great honor and pleasure to welcome to this podium and to this audience our honored guest, the Secretary of State of the United States of America, the honorable and really quite remarkable – honorable Michael R. Pompeo. (Applause.)
SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you, Governor, for that very, very generous introduction. It is true: When you walk in that gym and you say the name “Pompeo,” there is a whisper. I had a brother, Mark, who was really good – a really good basketball player.
And how about another round of applause for the Blue Eagles Honor Guard and Senior Airman Kayla Highsmith, and her wonderful rendition of the national anthem? (Applause.)
Thank you, too, to Pastor Laurie for that moving prayer, and I want to thank Hugh Hewitt and the Nixon Foundation for your invitation to speak at this important American institution. It was great to be sung to by an Air Force person, introduced by a Marine, and they let the Army guy in in front of the Navy guy’s house. (Laughter.) It’s all good.
It’s an honor to be here in Yorba Linda, where Nixon’s father built the house in which he was born and raised.
To all the Nixon Center board and staff who made today possible – it’s difficult in these times – thanks for making this day possible for me and for my team.
We are blessed to have some incredibly special people in the audience, including Chris, who I’ve gotten to know – Chris Nixon. I also want to thank Tricia Nixon and Julie Nixon Eisenhower for their support of this visit as well.
I want to recognize several courageous Chinese dissidents who have joined us here today and made a long trip.
And to all the other distinguished guests – (applause) – to all the other distinguished guests, thank you for being here. For those of you who got under the tent, you must have paid extra.
And those of you watching live, thank you for tuning in.
And finally, as the governor mentioned, I was born here in Santa Ana, not very far from here. I’ve got my sister and her husband in the audience today. Thank you all for coming out. I bet you never thought that I’d be standing up here.
My remarks today are the fourth set of remarks in a series of China speeches that I asked National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, FBI Director Chris Wray, and the Attorney General Barr to deliver alongside me.
We had a very clear purpose, a real mission. It was to explain the different facets of America’s relationship with China, the massive imbalances in that relationship that have built up over decades, and the Chinese Communist Party’s designs for hegemony.
Our goal was to make clear that the threats to Americans that President Trump’s China policy aims to address are clear and our strategy for securing those freedoms established.
Ambassador O’Brien spoke about ideology. FBI Director Wray talked about espionage. Attorney General Barr spoke about economics. And now my goal today is to put it all together for the American people and detail what the China threat means for our economy, for our liberty, and indeed for the future of free democracies around the world.
Next year marks half a century since Dr. Kissinger’s secret mission to China, and the 50th anniversary of President Nixon’s trip isn’t too far away in 2022.
The world was much different then.
We imagined engagement with China would produce a future with bright promise of comity and cooperation.
But today – today we’re all still wearing masks and watching the pandemic’s body count rise because the CCP failed in its promises to the world. We’re reading every morning new headlines of repression in Hong Kong and in Xinjiang.
We’re seeing staggering statistics of Chinese trade abuses that cost American jobs and strike enormous blows to the economies all across America, including here in southern California. And we’re watching a Chinese military that grows stronger and stronger, and indeed more menacing.
I’ll echo the questions ringing in the hearts and minds of Americans from here in California to my home state of Kansas and beyond:
What do the American people have to show now 50 years on from engagement with China?
Did the theories of our leaders that proposed a Chinese evolution towards freedom and democracy prove to be true?
Is this China’s definition of a win-win situation?
And indeed, centrally, from the Secretary of State’s perspective, is America safer? Do we have a greater likelihood of peace for ourselves and peace for the generations which will follow us?
Look, we have to admit a hard truth. We must admit a hard truth that should guide us in the years and decades to come, that if we want to have a free 21st century, and not the Chinese century of which Xi Jinping dreams, the old paradigm of blind engagement with China simply won’t get it done. We must not continue it and we must not return to it.
As President Trump has made very clear, we need a strategy that protects the American economy, and indeed our way of life. The free world must triumph over this new tyranny.
Now, before I seem too eager to tear down President Nixon’s legacy, I want to be clear that he did what he believed was best for the American people at the time, and he may well have been right.
He was a brilliant student of China, a fierce cold warrior, and a tremendous admirer of the Chinese people, just as I think we all are.
He deserves enormous credit for realizing that China was too important to be ignored, even when the nation was weakened because of its own self-inflicted communist brutality.
In 1967, in a very famous Foreign Affairs article, Nixon explained his future strategy. Here’s what he said:
He said, “Taking the long view, we simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside of the family of nations…The world cannot be safe until China changes. Thus, our aim – to the extent we can, we must influence events. Our goal should be to induce change.”
And I think that’s the key phrase from the entire article: “to induce change.”
So, with that historic trip to Beijing, President Nixon kicked off our engagement strategy. He nobly sought a freer and safer world, and he hoped that the Chinese Communist Party would return that commitment.
As time went on, American policymakers increasingly presumed that as China became more prosperous, it would open up, it would become freer at home, and indeed present less of a threat abroad, it’d be friendlier. It all seemed, I am sure, so inevitable.
But that age of inevitability is over. The kind of engagement we have been pursuing has not brought the kind of change inside of China that President Nixon had hoped to induce.
The truth is that our policies – and those of other free nations – resurrected China’s failing economy, only to see Beijing bite the international hands that were feeding it.
We opened our arms to Chinese citizens, only to see the Chinese Communist Party exploit our free and open society. China sent propagandists into our press conferences, our research centers, our high-schools, our colleges, and even into our PTA meetings.
We marginalized our friends in Taiwan, which later blossomed into a vigorous democracy.
We gave the Chinese Communist Party and the regime itself special economic treatment, only to see the CCP insist on silence over its human rights abuses as the price of admission for Western companies entering China.
Ambassador O’Brien ticked off a few examples just the other day: Marriott, American Airlines, Delta, United all removed references to Taiwan from their corporate websites, so as not to anger Beijing.
In Hollywood, not too far from here – the epicenter of American creative freedom, and self-appointed arbiters of social justice – self-censors even the most mildly unfavorable reference to China.
This corporate acquiescence to the CCP happens all over the world, too.
And how has this corporate fealty worked? Is its flattery rewarded? I’ll give you a quote from the speech that General Barr gave, Attorney General Barr. In a speech last week, he said that “The ultimate ambition of China’s rulers isn’t to trade with the United States. It is to raid the United States.”
China ripped off our prized intellectual property and trade secrets, causing millions of jobs[1] all across America.
It sucked supply chains away from America, and then added a widget made of slave labor.
It made the world’s key waterways less safe for international commerce.
President Nixon once said he feared he had created a “Frankenstein” by opening the world to the CCP, and here we are.
Now, people of good faith can debate why free nations allowed these bad things to happen for all these years. Perhaps we were naive about China’s virulent strain of communism, or triumphalist after our victory in the Cold War, or cravenly capitalist, or hoodwinked by Beijing’s talk of a “peaceful rise.”
Whatever the reason – whatever the reason, today China is increasingly authoritarian at home, and more aggressive in its hostility to freedom everywhere else.
And President Trump has said: enough.
I don’t think many people on either side of the aisle dispute the facts that I have laid out today. But even now, some are insisting that we preserve the model of dialogue for dialogue’s sake.
Now, to be clear, we’ll keep on talking. But the conversations are different these days. I traveled to Honolulu now just a few weeks back to meet with Yang Jiechi.
It was the same old story – plenty of words, but literally no offer to change any of the behaviors.
Yang’s promises, like so many the CCP made before him, were empty. His expectations, I surmise, were that I’d cave to their demands, because frankly this is what too many prior administrations have done. I didn’t, and President Trump will not either.
As Ambassador O’Brien explained so well, we have to keep in mind that the CCP regime is a Marxist-Leninist regime. General Secretary Xi Jinping is a true believer in a bankrupt totalitarian ideology.
It’s this ideology, it’s this ideology that informs his decades-long desire for global hegemony of Chinese communism. America can no longer ignore the fundamental political and ideological differences between our countries, just as the CCP has never ignored them.
My experience in the House Intelligence Committee, and then as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and my now two-plus years as America’s Secretary of State have led me to this central understanding:
That the only way – the only way to truly change communist China is to act not on the basis of what Chinese leaders say, but how they behave. And you can see American policy responding to this conclusion. President Reagan said that he dealt with the Soviet Union on the basis of “trust but verify.” When it comes to the CCP, I say we must distrust and verify. (Applause.)
We, the freedom-loving nations of the world, must induce China to change, just as President Nixon wanted. We must induce China to change in more creative and assertive ways, because Beijing’s actions threaten our people and our prosperity.
We must start by changing how our people and our partners perceive the Chinese Communist Party. We have to tell the truth. We can’t treat this incarnation of China as a normal country, just like any other.
We know that trading with China is not like trading with a normal, law-abiding nation. Beijing threatens international agreements as – treats international suggestions as – or agreements as suggestions, as conduits for global dominance.
But by insisting on fair terms, as our trade representative did when he secured our phase one trade deal, we can force China to reckon with its intellectual property theft and policies that harmed American workers.
We know too that doing business with a CCP-backed company is not the same as doing business with, say, a Canadian company. They don’t answer to independent boards, and many of them are state-sponsored and so have no need to pursue profits.
A good example is Huawei. We stopped pretending Huawei is an innocent telecommunications company that’s just showing up to make sure you can talk to your friends. We’ve called it what it is – a true national security threat – and we’ve taken action accordingly.
We know too that if our companies invest in China, they may wittingly or unwittingly support the Communist Party’s gross human rights violations.
Our Departments of Treasury and Commerce have thus sanctioned and blacklisted Chinese leaders and entities that are harming and abusing the most basic rights for people all across the world. Several agencies have worked together on a business advisory to make certain our CEOs are informed of how their supply chains are behaving inside of China.
We know too, we know too that not all Chinese students and employees are just normal students and workers that are coming here to make a little bit of money and to garner themselves some knowledge. Too many of them come here to steal our intellectual property and to take this back to their country.
The Department of Justice and other agencies have vigorously pursued punishment for these crimes.
We know that the People’s Liberation Army is not a normal army, too. Its purpose is to uphold the absolute rule of the Chinese Communist Party elites and expand a Chinese empire, not to protect the Chinese people.
And so our Department of Defense has ramped up its efforts, freedom of navigation operations out and throughout the East and South China Seas, and in the Taiwan Strait as well. And we’ve created a Space Force to help deter China from aggression on that final frontier.
And so too, frankly, we’ve built out a new set of policies at the State Department dealing with China, pushing President Trump’s goals for fairness and reciprocity, to rewrite the imbalances that have grown over decades.
Just this week, we announced the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston because it was a hub of spying and intellectual property theft. (Applause.)
We reversed, two weeks ago, eight years of cheek-turning with respect to international law in the South China Sea.
We’ve called on China to conform its nuclear capabilities to the strategic realities of our time.
And the State Department – at every level, all across the world – has engaged with our Chinese counterparts simply to demand fairness and reciprocity.
But our approach can’t just be about getting tough. That’s unlikely to achieve the outcome that we desire. We must also engage and empower the Chinese people – a dynamic, freedom-loving people who are completely distinct from the Chinese Communist Party.
That begins with in-person diplomacy. (Applause.) I’ve met Chinese men and women of great talent and diligence wherever I go.
I’ve met with Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs who escaped Xinjiang’s concentration camps. I’ve talked with Hong Kong’s democracy leaders, from Cardinal Zen to Jimmy Lai. Two days ago in London, I met with Hong Kong freedom fighter Nathan Law.
And last month in my office, I heard the stories of Tiananmen Square survivors. One of them is here today.
Wang Dan was a key student who has never stopped fighting for freedom for the Chinese people. Mr. Wang, will you please stand so that we may recognize you? (Applause.)
Also with us today is the father of the Chinese democracy movement, Wei Jingsheng. He spent decades in Chinese labor camps for his advocacy. Mr. Wei, will you please stand? (Applause.)
I grew up and served my time in the Army during the Cold War. And if there is one thing I learned, communists almost always lie. The biggest lie that they tell is to think that they speak for 1.4 billion people who are surveilled, oppressed, and scared to speak out.
Quite the contrary. The CCP fears the Chinese people’s honest opinions more than any foe, and save for losing their own grip on power, they have reason – no reason to.
Just think how much better off the world would be – not to mention the people inside of China – if we had been able to hear from the doctors in Wuhan and they’d been allowed to raise the alarm about the outbreak of a new and novel virus.
For too many decades, our leaders have ignored, downplayed the words of brave Chinese dissidents who warned us about the nature of the regime we’re facing.
And we can’t ignore it any longer. They know as well as anyone that we can never go back to the status quo.
But changing the CCP’s behavior cannot be the mission of the Chinese people alone. Free nations have to work to defend freedom. It’s the furthest thing from easy.
But I have faith we can do it. I have faith because we’ve done it before. We know how this goes.
I have faith because the CCP is repeating some of the same mistakes that the Soviet Union made – alienating potential allies, breaking trust at home and abroad, rejecting property rights and predictable rule of law.
I have faith. I have faith because of the awakening I see among other nations that know we can’t go back to the past in the same way that we do here in America. I’ve heard this from Brussels, to Sydney, to Hanoi.
And most of all, I have faith we can defend freedom because of the sweet appeal of freedom itself.
Look at the Hong Kongers clamoring to emigrate abroad as the CCP tightens its grip on that proud city. They wave American flags.
It’s true, there are differences. Unlike the Soviet Union, China is deeply integrated into the global economy. But Beijing is more dependent on us than we are on them. (Applause.)
Look, I reject the notion that we’re living in an age of inevitability, that some trap is pre-ordained, that CCP supremacy is the future. Our approach isn’t destined to fail because America is in decline. As I said in Munich earlier this year, the free world is still winning. We just need to believe it and know it and be proud of it. People from all over the world still want to come to open societies. They come here to study, they come here to work, they come here to build a life for their families. They’re not desperate to settle in China.
It’s time. It’s great to be here today. The timing is perfect. It’s time for free nations to act. Not every nation will approach China in the same way, nor should they. Every nation will have to come to its own understanding of how to protect its own sovereignty, how to protect its own economic prosperity, and how to protect its ideals from the tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party.
But I call on every leader of every nation to start by doing what America has done – to simply insist on reciprocity, to insist on transparency and accountability from the Chinese Communist Party. It’s a cadre of rulers that are far from homogeneous.
And these simple and powerful standards will achieve a great deal. For too long we let the CCP set the terms of engagement, but no longer. Free nations must set the tone. We must operate on the same principles.
We have to draw common lines in the sand that cannot be washed away by the CCP’s bargains or their blandishments. Indeed, this is what the United States did recently when we rejected China’s unlawful claims in the South China Sea once and for all, as we have urged countries to become Clean Countries so that their citizens’ private information doesn’t end up in the hand of the Chinese Communist Party. We did it by setting standards.
Now, it’s true, it’s difficult. It’s difficult for some small countries. They fear being picked off. Some of them for that reason simply don’t have the ability, the courage to stand with us for the moment.
Indeed, we have a NATO ally of ours that hasn’t stood up in the way that it needs to with respect to Hong Kong because they fear Beijing will restrict access to China’s market. This is the kind of timidity that will lead to historic failure, and we can’t repeat it.
We cannot repeat the mistakes of these past years. The challenge of China demands exertion, energy from democracies – those in Europe, those in Africa, those in South America, and especially those in the Indo-Pacific region.
And if we don’t act now, ultimately the CCP will erode our freedoms and subvert the rules-based order that our societies have worked so hard to build. If we bend the knee now, our children’s children may be at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party, whose actions are the primary challenge today in the free world.
General Secretary Xi is not destined to tyrannize inside and outside of China forever, unless we allow it.
Now, this isn’t about containment. Don’t buy that. It’s about a complex new challenge that we’ve never faced before. The USSR was closed off from the free world. Communist China is already within our borders.
So we can’t face this challenge alone. The United Nations, NATO, the G7 countries, the G20, our combined economic, diplomatic, and military power is surely enough to meet this challenge if we direct it clearly and with great courage.
Maybe it’s time for a new grouping of like-minded nations, a new alliance of democracies.
We have the tools. I know we can do it. Now we need the will. To quote scripture, I ask is “our spirit willing but our flesh weak?”
If the free world doesn’t change – doesn’t change, communist China will surely change us. There can’t be a return to the past practices because they’re comfortable or because they’re convenient.
Securing our freedoms from the Chinese Communist Party is the mission of our time, and America is perfectly positioned to lead it because our founding principles give us that opportunity.
As I explained in Philadelphia last week, standing, staring at Independence Hall, our nation was founded on the premise that all human beings possess certain rights that are unalienable.
And it’s our government’s job to secure those rights. It is a simple and powerful truth. It’s made us a beacon of freedom for people all around the world, including people inside of China.
Indeed, Richard Nixon was right when he wrote in 1967 that “the world cannot be safe until China changes.” Now it’s up to us to heed his words.
Today the danger is clear.
And today the awakening is happening.
Today the free world must respond.
We can never go back to the past.
May God bless each of you.
May God bless the Chinese people.
And may God bless the people of the United States of America.
Thank you all.
(Applause.)
MR HEWITT: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Please be seated. I’m Hugh Hewitt, the president of the library, and Secretary Pompeo graciously invited some questions as I was listening. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Secretary, at the Nixon Library.
My first question has to do with the context of the president’s visit in 1972. You mentioned the Soviet Union was isolated, but it was dangerous. He went to the People’s Republic of China in 1972 to try and ally and combine interests with them against the Soviet Union; it was successful.
Does Russia present an opportunity now to the United States to coax them into the battle to be relentlessly candid about the Chinese Communist Party?
SECRETARY POMPEO: So I do think there’s that opportunity. That opportunity is born of the relationship, the natural relationship between Russia and China, and we can do something as well. There are places where we need to work with Russia. Today – or tomorrow, I guess it is, our teams will be on the ground with the Russians working on a strategic dialogue to hopefully create the next generation of arms control agreements like Reagan did. It’s in our interest, it’s in Russia’s interest. We’ve asked the Chinese to participate. They’ve declined to date. We hope they’ll change their mind.
It’s these kind of things – these proliferation issues, these big strategic challenges – that if we work alongside Russia, I’m convinced we can make the world safer. And so there – I think there is a place for us to work with the Russians to achieve a more likely outcome of peace not only for the United States but for the world.
MR HEWITT: President Nixon also put quite a lot of store in personal relationships over many years with individuals. That can lead wrong. President Bush famously misjudged Vladimir Putin and said so afterwards. You have met President Xi often. Is the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party someone with whom we can deal on a transparent and reliable basis, in your opinion, based on your personal diplomacy with him?
SECRETARY POMPEO: So the meetings that I’ve had and the meeting that the President – we’ve had – they’ve been good, frank conversations. He is the most powerful leader of China since Mao. He has also in many ways deinstitutionalized the Chinese Communist Party, thus giving him even more capacity and more power.
But Hugh, I think the way to think about it is how I spoke about this today: It’s about actions. And so how one evaluates one’s counterparts sitting across the table from them – it’s important to think about how you can find common understandings and make progress. But in the end, it’s not about what someone says or the agreement that they sign, but are they prepared to lead, to do the things that they committed to? Are they prepared to fulfill their promises?
And we’ve watched – we’ve watched this China walk away from their promises to the world on Hong Kong, we watched their – General Secretary Xi promised President Obama in the Rose Garden in 2015 that he wouldn’t militarize the South China Sea. And Google the South China Sea and arms; you’ll see another promise broken.
So in the end, from my perspective, it’s much more important to watch how leaders behave and how they lead than what it is you think when you have a chance to talk to them on the phone or meet them in person.
MR HEWITT: Mr. Secretary, you said this is not containment. I heard that very clearly. I have read the three previous speeches by Ambassador O’Brien, Director Wray, Attorney General Barr, and now listened to you very closely. It isn’t containment, but it is a fairly comprehensive, multidimensional, relentlessly objective candor. Is that dangerous in a world that’s not used to speaking clearly about delicate subjects?
SECRETARY POMPEO: My experience, and I think President Trump’s experience too in his life as a businessman, is the best policy is always true candor, identifying the places that you have a redline, identifying places that you have a real interest, making clear if there’s places where you don’t, and there’s things that you can work on alongside each other.
I think the real danger comes from misunderstandings and miscommunication and the failure to be honest about the things that matter to you, because others will move into that space and then conflict arises. I think the world is a heck of a lot safer when you have leaders who are prepared to be honest about the things that matter and prepared to talk about the things their nation is prepared to do to secure those interests. And you can reduce risk by these conversations so long as you’re honest about it.
So I – no, I don’t think it’s dangerous. I think it’s just the opposite of that.
MR HEWITT: You also said – and I’m sure the speech will be known as the “distrust but verify” speech – when you distrust but verify, that still premises verification is possible. It is still possible to do agreements and to verify them; correct?
SECRETARY POMPEO: It is, yeah, you can still do it. Each nation’s got to be prepared for a certain amount of intrusiveness connected to that. And it is not in the nature of communist regimes to allow transparency inside of their country. And so it’s been done before. We’ve had – we had arms control agreements with the Soviet Union that we got verification that was sufficient to ensure that we protected American interests. I believe we can do it again. I hope that we can do this on these – I mean, the Chinese Communist Party has several hundred nuclear warheads. This is a serious global power. And to the extent we can find common ground, a common set of understandings to reduce risk that there’s ever a really bad day for the world, we ought to do it, and it’s going to require agreement and verification.
MR HEWITT: Ambassador Richard Haass, who is now chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, said very recently – it may have been yesterday, it might have been this morning; I saw it this morning preparing – quote, “Secretary Pompeo doesn’t speak of China but of the Chinese Communist Party as if there were a China apart from the party. This is meant to antagonize and make diplomacy impossible. Quite a stance for America’s chief diplomat to take unless his goal is to ensure diplomacy fails.” Is that your goal?
SECRETARY POMPEO: (Laughter.) Ah, goodness. Hard to begin. Here’s where I’ll begin: It’s a bit patronizing to the people of China to make such an assertion that they are not free-thinking beings, that they’re not rational people who were given – I mean, they too were made in the image of God, right. They have all the capacity that anybody in the world does. So to somehow think that we ought to ignore the voices of the people of China seems to me the wrong approach. It is true the Chinese Communist Party is a one-party rule. And so we will deal with the Chinese Communist Party as the head of state for China, and we need to, and we need to engage in dialogue. But it seems to me we would dishonor ourselves and the people of China if we ignored them.
MR HEWITT: Now, Ambassador O’Brien, whose speech you referenced, put heavy emphasis on the ideology of Marxist-Leninism. It was almost quaint to hear that conversation again; it’s gone from our vocabulary. Does the American people, and especially American media, need to reacquaint itself with what Marxist-Leninists believe, because the CCP genuinely does believe it?
SECRETARY POMPEO: I always get in trouble, Hugh, when I comment on the media. So I’ll say this much: For those of us who have lived and seen and observed, there are other Marxist-Leninist nations today as well – and have seen – they believe – they have an understanding, a central understanding of how people interact and how societies ought to interact. And it is certainly the case today that the leadership in China believes that.
We should acknowledge that, and we should make sure that we don’t for a moment think that they don’t believe it. It’s what Ambassador O’Brien’s speech was about. It was the fact – it was acknowledging that they believe it and recognizing that we have to respond in a way that reflects our understanding of the way they view the world.
MR HEWITT: Let’s not talk about the American media. I want to talk about the Chinese media for a moment. They are aggressive, to say the least, and right now they are aggressively defending, for example, TikTok. A small question within a large question: Is TikTok capable of being weaponized? Is that an example of what’s going on? And generally, Chinese media has become far more aggressive than I’ve seen in 30 years since I was at the library the first time of watching it. Is that something you’ve noticed as well?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes, they’re very aggressive. Two pieces to this, one you hit upon. One is I’ll describe as their technology medium. Without singling out any particular business, our view of these companies is we’re neither for or against the company; we’re about making sure that we protect the information that belongs to each of you – your health records, your face if it’s a facial recognition software, your address. All the things that you care that you want to make sure the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t have, we have a responsibility to make sure that the systems that you’re using don’t give them access to that. And so whether it’s the efforts we’ve made against Huawei or the work that we’re doing on other software firms, the American task is to protect the American people and their information.
The second piece of this has to do with their – what I’ll call the state-sponsored media of China and their disinformation. You should know – and this is where I am concerned about the American media, too – these are state-sponsored media organizations that take their messaging from the Chinese Communist Party each day. When American institutions pick up those storylines and carry them forward, they are, in fact, propagating Chinese propaganda, and we all ought to be wise to that.
There was an editorial in The New York Times yesterday by someone who had a clear view that was antithetical to the American way of life. The New York Times ran it straight-up without comment, forwarding – although albeit in the opinion section, but propagating Chinese propaganda. That is certainly not instructive when they’re telling senators from Arkansas they can’t simply talk about America and American freedom in that same media outlet.
MR HEWITT: You mentioned that a lot of corporate America – and you mentioned specifically Hollywood – have got deep intertwinement with the Chinese economy. So I don’t want to talk about soft power; I want to talk about soft appeasement. One of my favorite sports figures, LeBron James, falls silent when China comes up. In the new Top Gun movie, the Taiwan and Japanese patches are taken off Maverick’s jacket. They’re not going to be in Top Gun 2; they were in Top Gun 1. What do you say not to those individuals, but to everyone who has an American spotlight about their responsibility to be candid about the People’s Republic of China?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Here’s our ask: Our ask is if you claim that you care about human rights or social justice or these things, if you make that part of your corporate theology, then you ought to be consistent. And you can’t be consistent if you’re operating there in China without talking about and acknowledging what the Chinese Communist Party is doing in certain parts of their country – the oppression that’s taking place. Look, every business leader has got to make decisions for themselves. They’ve got to be able to live with the decisions that they make. You highlighted a few.
I’d simply ask this: If you run an entity and the United States Government were to tell you you couldn’t do something, put a particular symbol in your movie or put a particular name on your menu – if we were to tell you that, you’d say nope, that’s not appropriate, and it, of course, would not be appropriate. It seems to me that if you permit the Chinese Communist Party to limit you in that way, it’s got to be difficult for you to go home at night.
MR HEWITT: Two more questions, Mr. Secretary. (Applause.) Because it is hot and it is warm, and everyone out here has been in the sun for a while. You’re a West Point graduate, and as Governor Wilson noted, number one, so this might be tough for you. But we are an, like Athens was, a naval power. America is a naval power. And as like Sparta is, China is a land power. Do we not have to change how we approach defense spending to put more emphasis on our naval resources than on our Army resources?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Oh, that’s tough for an Army guy to say. (Laughter.)
MR HEWITT: I know.
SECRETARY POMPEO: You’re killing me. Look, I’ll leave to Secretary Esper the details of this, but I can – here’s what I can say. When President Trump set out our National Security Strategy early on in the administration, for the first time we identified China in a way that was fundamentally different than we had done – this isn’t partisan – for decades.
That was important because that was a signal to all of us, whether it’s the State Department or the Defense Department, that we needed to reoriented our – reorient our assets. And so yes, you’ve seen the Department of Defense begin to do that. These are big things to turn. These budgets are multiyear. It takes a while.
But if you look at how Secretary Esper and President Trump are positioning our military capabilities – not just the tactical, operational, and strategic capabilities, but our cyber capabilities, our space capabilities – if you look at how we’re thinking about this and spending resources in year two, three, four, and five, I think you’ll see that our focus has shifted pretty dramatically.
It’s not to say that our efforts to protect America from terrorism are behind us. We still have work to do there. But I think this great power challenge that presents itself is something that we have recognized and we begin to make sure that we allocate your money – our taxpayer resources that we have – to the appropriate ends to achieve American security.
MR HEWITT: My last question has to do with a former secretary of state who was also an Army man, George Marshall. He gave a speech in 1947 at your alma mater, Harvard, in which he called on all the nations of the world to recognize that the world was in crisis and to choose a side. And he assured them in that famous address that if you chose the American side in (inaudible) Europe, you could count on America.
So as you make the appeal you did today, not just to Europe, where it’s relatively easy to be outspoken, though Norway has found it not to be outspoken, but to Taiwan and Japan and Vietnam and all of the – Australia, all of the nations of that region – can they rely on America in the way that people opposing the Soviet Union could rely on George Marshall’s assurance in 1947?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Undoubtedly, undoubtedly, Hugh. The only thing I’ll say is when – this language of “pick a side” does make sense to me, but I think about picking a side differently than picking America or picking China. I think the sides, the division – the shirts and skins, if you will – is between freedom and tyranny. I think that’s the decision that we’re asking each of these nations to make. (Applause.)
And here’s the good news of this. The good news is it does take American leadership often in these cases. To your point, they need to know that America will be there for them. I’ve seen the tide turn. In just – in just these three and half years of our administration, I’ve watched other nations have less timidity, become more prepared to stand up for their freedoms and for the freedoms of their people. We don’t ask them to do this for America. We ask them to do it for their country and for their nation – the freedom and the independence and to protect the rights of their people.
And when we do that and we tell them that America will be there, I am very confident in the end that this is a world that with the hard work applied will become one that is governed by a rules-based order, and the freedom of the American people will be secured.
MR HEWITT: Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us here today.
SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you.
MR HEWITT: Please join me in thanking the Secretary. (Applause.)
SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you all.
[1] job losses