Secretary of State Mike Pompeo emphasized the importance of working with allies to curb Chinese influence in a Tuesday visit to Tokyo, according to reports.
Pompeo met with foreign ministers from Japan, Australia, and India in his first visit to East Asia in over a year, Reuters reports. The American diplomat was the only one to call out China directly in public comments, saying “it is more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the CCP’s exploitation, corruption and coercion,” Reuters says.
Pompeo now just entered the Prime Minister’s Office. pic.twitter.com/KBT2IsQm5L
— Satoshi Sugiyama (@SatoshiJournal) October 6, 2020
The “Quad” of nations emphasized the need for a free Indo-Pacific region, and the grouping could become a formalized institution that adds more members in the future, Pompeo told Japanese newspaper Nikkei. He cited Chinese aggression in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea as issues for the group to monitor, among others. China has condemned the Quad as an anti-CCP conglomerate, according to Reuters. (RELATED: China Accuses DeVos And Pompeo Of ‘Fabricating Lies Against China’)
Pompeo was also slated to visit Mongolia and South Korea during this Asia trip, but the itinerary was cut short after President Donald Trump tested positive for the Coronavirus, per Reuters. Pompeo continued to blame China for the outbreak of Covid-19 on the trip, saying “When we met, now, last year, the landscape was very different. We couldn’t have imagined a pandemic that came from Wuhan. That crisis was made infinitely worse by the Chinese Communist Party’s cover-up.”
Reliance on China for trade may be an obstacle to Pompeo’s goals with the Quad, as the economic power is a top importer of goods from Japan, Australia, and India, per Reuters. Despite the challenges of confronting China, Pompeo was optimistic during the trip. “This is only the second time that the four ministers have met, but I believe today we will come up with practical ways to begin to implement the things we can do together,” he told Nikkei.