Amid LAC row, US calls on China to stop ‘bullying neighbours’

WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday slammed China for engaging in a “clear and intensifying pattern of bullying its neighbors” amid renewed Chinese incursions into India, while demanding that Beijing also enter into a dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo signaled a toughening of the Trump administration’s stand on China’s growing depredations vis-a-vis India on two occasions even as Washington and Beijing instituted new measures to curtail activity of each others diplomats and officials and the U.S expanded the scope of its concerns to the Tibet issue.
“We’re hoping for a peaceful resolution to the situation on the China-India border…the Chinese communist party is engaged in a clear & intensifying pattern of bullying its neighbors,” Pompeo said at a state Department briefing, while also expressing concern about Chinese call to “Sinicize” Tibetan Buddhism and calling on Beijing to enter dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
Separately, Pompeo told Fox News that the “entire world begin to unite around the central understanding that the Chinese Communist Party simply is going to refuse to compete in a fair, reciprocal and transparent way,” as he defended India’s reported sending a warship to the South China sea.
“So, whether it’s our friends in India, our friends in Australia, friends in Japan or South Korea, I think they have all come to see the risk to their own people, to their own countries, and you’ll see them partner with the US to push back (China) on every front that we’ve talked about this evening,” Pompeo said in reference to India’s pushback against China’s maritime assertiveness.
The US smackdown came even as Washington instituted new requirements on Chinese diplomats conducting meetings and events in the U.S in what it suggested was reciprocal action against curtailment of American diplomats in China who face constant barriers to their work. Also among US targets are Chinese Confucius Institute cultural centers on US university campuses which Washington now views with suspicion.
“I think everyone’s coming to see the risk associated with them,” Pompeo said, revealing that the US will get them all closed out before the end of this year. He has also indicated that President Trump may take further action to curtail Chinese students and scholars coming to the US to spy.
Pompeo was joined in the Trump administration’s growing mistrust of China by former US envoy to UN Nikki Haley, who told a US-India event that Beijing had taken a “naive” US and its leaders for a ride over the past several decades, and Washington through its robust Indo-Pacific strategy, is now learning who its real friends are.
Speaking at the third India-US Leadership Summit organised virtually by the US India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF), Haley on Tuesday said Americans know that Indians are not a threat to them and as such, it is time for Indians to share their success story.
“Through this India-Pacific strategy, going forward America is learning who its real friends are. When you learn that, yes, it’s India. But now Indians need to go and show more of who they are,” she said, explaining that Indians should stop being shy and talk more about their successes and accomplishments. “Americans are not threatened by Indians and realize that Indians make our country better,” she added.
(With agency inputs)