America and its allies needed to set a new course “if we want to have a free 21st century",Pompeo said.
“The truth is that our policies - and those of other free nations - rejected China’s failing economy,only to see Beijing bite the international hands that fed it,” he said at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda,California.
“But even now,some are insisting we preserve the model of dialogue for dialogue’s sake… We’ll keep on talking. But the conversations are different these days.”
The setting of the speech was highly symbolic. Present Nixon opened diplomatic relations between the US and China in 1972,an achievement long celebrated by the Republican Party. The speech marked a wholesale re-evaluation of China's place in the world since then.
Pompeo’s comments came less than two days after the US took the extraordinary step of demanding theshut down of the Chinese Consulate in Houston,resulting in consular staff burning documents in metal barrels as soon as they learnt they were about to be kicked out.
Beijing hit back immediately,calling the move “unprecedented” as it weighed up shutting US missions in China in retaliation for the closure.