On July 23, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library that the old approach of indiscriminate engagement with China had failed and that the free world must prevail over what he called a new tyranny.
He urged free nations to demand reciprocity, transparency and accountability from the Chinese Communist Party and called for a new alliance of democracies and like-minded nations.

2020-07-28
On July 23, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a speech titled “Communist China and the Free World’s Future” at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California.
At the site associated with the president whose 1972 visit opened a new era of U.S.-China relations, Pompeo declared that the long-standing policy of engagement with China had failed and called upon free nations to confront the Chinese Communist Party together.
The following is from a Nikkei article related to the preceding chapter.
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2020-07-28
The old paradigm of blind engagement with China has failed.
We must not continue such policies.
We must not return to them.
The free world must triumph over this new tyranny.
The following is from a Nikkei article related to the preceding chapter.
The United States has already concluded that China is showing no sign of changing its behavior.
A major turning point was the June 17 meeting in Hawaii between Pompeo and Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party and China’s top foreign-policy official.
In his July 23 speech, Pompeo denounced the meeting, saying that it consisted of the same old rhetoric, with no proposals to change China’s behavior, and that Yang’s promises were empty.
However, the effort to build a coalition against China was still incomplete.
Britain had aligned itself with the United States in excluding Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from next-generation 5G networks, and there were reports that France would also move in the same direction.
In his speech, Pompeo openly expressed frustration that some NATO allies feared that the Chinese government would restrict their access to its market.
He may have had Germany and Italy, which had deep economic ties with China, in mind.
Although he did not say so explicitly, there were indications that Pompeo was contemplating the possibility of political change in China.
At the speech, he invited former student leaders of the democracy movement during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and stressed the need to encourage the Chinese people who love freedom.
“I didn’t say that.”
In an interview with FOX News, Pompeo responded this way when asked whether his speech sounded as though he were seeking regime change.
There was no sign that Xi Jinping, who had abolished presidential term limits through a constitutional amendment and sought prolonged rule, would change his behavior.
The following is a summary of Secretary of State Pompeo’s speech on China.
The old paradigm of blind engagement with China has failed.
We must not continue such policies.
We must not return to them.
The free world must triumph over this new tyranny.
The policies of the United States and other free nations revived China’s faltering economy, but the Chinese government merely bit the international hand that had helped it.
China was granted special economic treatment, but the Chinese Communist Party merely compelled Western companies to remain silent about human-rights abuses as the price of access.
China stole valuable intellectual property and trade secrets.
It drew supply chains away from the United States and introduced elements of slave labor.
The world’s major sea lanes became less secure for international commerce.
Former President Nixon once said that, by opening the world to the Chinese Communist Party, he worried that he might have created a Frankenstein.
How prescient that concern proved to be.
Today, China has become more authoritarian at home and more aggressive abroad, openly displaying hostility toward freedom.
President Trump has been saying, “Enough is enough.”
We will continue dialogue.
But recent dialogue has been different.
I recently met Yang Jiechi, a member of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo, in Hawaii.
There were words, but no proposals to change China’s behavior.
It was the same old story.
Yang’s promises were empty.
He thought I would yield to his demands.
I did not.
President Trump will not yield either.
Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, is a true believer in a bankrupt totalitarian ideology.
It is this ideology that defines China’s long-standing communist ambition for global hegemony.
We can no longer ignore the fundamental political and ideological differences between our two countries.
Former President Reagan dealt with the Soviet Union according to the principle of “trust but verify.”
When it comes to the Chinese Communist Party, the principle must be “distrust and verify.”
The free nations of the world must use more creative and resolute methods to change the behavior of the Chinese Communist Party.
That is because the actions of the Chinese government threaten our people and our prosperity.
We cannot treat China in its present form as an ordinary country like any other.
Trade with China is not the same as trade with an ordinary country that follows the law.
The Chinese government sees international agreements as proposals or as routes toward global domination.
We know that not every Chinese student or employee is simply an ordinary student or worker.
Some gather knowledge for the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party or its proxies.
The Department of Justice and other agencies have vigorously prosecuted such crimes.
This week, we closed the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas, because it was a hub of espionage and intellectual-property theft.
On China’s compliance with international law in the South China Sea, we reversed the previous administration’s eight-year policy of accepting humiliation.
The State Department has demanded fairness and reciprocity from China at every level.
It is time for free nations to act.
We call on every country to begin with what the United States has already done.
We must demand reciprocity, transparency and accountability from the Chinese Communist Party.
It is true that, at present, some countries do not have the courage to stand with us.
Some NATO allies will not stand up for freedom in Hong Kong because they fear that the Chinese government will restrict their access to its market.
Let us not repeat the same mistakes of the past.
Meeting the challenge from China will require the efforts of democratic nations in Europe, Africa, South America and especially the Indo-Pacific.
Unless we act now, the Chinese Communist Party will eventually erode our freedoms and overturn the rules-based order built by free societies.
No single nation can take on this challenge alone.
By properly combining the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, and our economic, diplomatic and military strength, we can adequately confront this threat.
The time may have come to build a new grouping of like-minded nations, a new alliance of democracies.
If the free world does not change Communist China, China will change us.
Protecting our freedoms from the Chinese Communist Party is the mission of our time.
Because of its founding principles, the United States is ideally positioned to lead that mission.
Nixon wrote in 1967 that the world could not be safe until China changed.
The danger is clear.
The free world must respond.
We can never return to the past.
(Washington — Tomoko Ashizuka)