JAKARTA: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo renewed the Trump administration’s rhetorical onslaught against China in Indonesia on Thursday as the American presidential election looms.
With China a central theme in President Donald Trump’s campaign to win a second term in just five days time, Pompeo took aim at Chinese aggressiveness in the South China Sea, where it has advanced maritime and territorial claims over the objections of its smaller neighbours, over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its repression of religious minorities.
Speaking in Jakarta, the headquarters of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Pompeo praised Indonesia’s leadership in Asean for pushing back on what he called China’s “unlawful” claims and lauded Jakarta’s protection of its own territory. He also attacked Beijing for its treatment of religious minorities, calling China “the gravest threat to the future of religious freedom.“
Delivering a speech on religious freedom in the capital of the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Pompeo denounced the Chinese Communist Party for its reported mass abuses of Muslim minorities in the western Xinjiang region.
“The atheist CCP has tried to convince the world that its brutalisation of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang is necessary as a counterterrorism efforts or poverty - depending on the audience, they are speaking to,” Pompeo said. “I know the Chinese Communist Party has tried to convince Indonesians to look away from the torments your fellow Muslims are suffering.“
He dismissed as fantasy Chinese officials’ claims that Uighurs are “eager to discard their ethnic, religious and cultural identities to become ‘modern’ and enjoy the benefits of CCP-led development“ and urged Indonesians to reject them.
Earlier, in an appearance with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, Pompeo took China to task for threatening its neighbours.
“We respect freedom of the seas, sovereignty and the rule of law,” he said, standing beside Marsudi. Marsudi agreed, saying “any claims should be based on universally recognised principle of international law“ although she did not specifically mention China.
“Our law-abiding nations reject the unlawful claims by Chinese Communist Party in the South China Sea as is clear from Indonesia’s courageous leadership on this subject within Asean and at the United Nations,“ Pompeo said. “It’s a cause worth pursuing in multilateral settings and the Trump administration very much supports this.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration clarified its longstanding policy on the disputes by rejecting outright nearly all of Beijing’s maritime claims in the South China Sea. That decision in July came as Trump began a concerted effort to use China as a campaign cudgel against his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, who he paints as weak on China and beholden to it.
Previously, US policy had been to insist that maritime disputes between China and its smaller neighbours be resolved peacefully through UN-backed arbitration. But in a July 13 statement, Pompeo said the US now regards virtually all Chinese maritime claims outside its internationally recognised waters to be illegitimate.
China has pressed ahead with attempts to enforce its disputed claims in the South China Sea, leading to serious spats with Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia in recent years. It has ignored arbitration rulings that the disputes must be negotiated.
