Secretary Pompeo at Hudson Award Gala: The U.S. Must Confront China's Communist Threat

In October, we honored Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with the 2019 Herman Kahn Award. Secretary Pompeo delivered a landmark speech, articulating the administration's clear and distinct vision for America's future with China. 

Praising the speech in a recent interview with the Secretary, Hugh Hewitt commented: "You received the prestigious Herman Kahn award. I don't know that there's an award that matters more among center-right and intellectually-minded foreign policy mavens."

Read some key moments from Secretary Pompeo's speech: 

ON THE PEOPLE OF CHINA: 

Secretary Pompeo highlighted the "long-cherished tradition of friendship" that the United States has shared with the Chinese people and celebrated the Chinese-American community.  He warned that "the communist government in China today is not the same as the people of China. They're reaching for and using methods that have created challenges for the United States and for the world." 

Forbes Magazine noted: 

"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated what Vice President Mike Pence said a week prior, that when it comes to China, Washington’s qualms are not with Chinese students, techies, scientists and shop owners, but with the leaders in Beijing."

ON AMERICAN VALUES:

Secretary Pompeo criticized long-held policies towards the threat of Communist China. In attempting to maintain a friendship with the People's Republic, "we accommodated and encouraged China's rise for decades, even when that rise was at the expense of American values, Western democracy, and security, and good common sense." In order to avoid conflict with the country, the United States "all too often shied away from talking directly about the human rights issues there and American values when they came into conflict, and we downplayed ideological differences, even after the Tiananmen Square massacre and other significant human rights abuses.

Ben Weingarten praised the Secretary's new posture in The Federalist: 

In Pompeo’s speech, dubbed “The China Challenge,” he surveyed the history of American willful blindness and consequent folly toward the totalitarian regime, acknowledging that “we accommodated and encouraged China’s rise for decades.”

The Secretary urged the United States and its people to "collectively" stand up and "confront these challenges from the PRC head-on." He urged the American people to "engage China as it is, not as we wish it were." 

In closing, Secretary Pompeo reminded us of Herman Kahn's call "to think unconventionally to create persuasive arguments for policy and make those arguments consistently to the American people." 

Click here to watch the full speech or read the transcript. 

Hudson Highlights

New Episodes of The Realignment

Marshall and Saagar went up to Capitol Hill to interview Missouri Senator Josh Hawley about the dramatic political, economic, and technological changes reshaping America and its role in the world.

And in last week's episode, Dr. Peter Navarro, director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, joined The Realignment to discuss the Trump administration’s approach to economic competition and the need to focus on blue-collar workers and manufacturing.

This week, Marshall and Saagar sat down with Hudson's own Mike Doran and Blaise Misztal for a debate on Syria, Turkey, the Kurds, and the state of the U.S. alliance system in the Middle East.

Commentary

China: Trade and the NBA

Rob Spalding comments on the dangers of U.S. investment in Chinese companies and Vice President Mike Pence's recent comments about the NBA on Fox and Friends:

Mike Watson discusses the NBA and the threat of Chinese communism in Providence Magazine: 

While most Americans don’t follow foreign affairs closely, the recent CCP overreach is exposing American sports fans and video game players to this rising threat. Fans learned this week that ESPN demanded its employees avoid discussing Hong Kong when talking about the Morey story. ESPN host Stephen A. Smith blasted Morey for his supposed irresponsibility, saying of him, “you have an obligation to adopt and embrace the interest of those you collect a paycheck from.” The message his listeners heard? Chinese Communists can, and will, hurt you if you cross them. ESPN now uses maps, including CCP territorial claims, that international tribunals have ruled invalid.

Michael Pillsbury discusses 'phase one' of the U.S.-China trade deal on Fox Business. 

Turkey-Syria

Blaise Misztal discusses Turkish President Erdogan's upcoming visit to the White House and what it could mean for the future of U.S.-Turkey relations in NBC: 

President Donald Trump invited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to come to Washington Wednesday to demonstrate his dealmaking prowess. Instead, the meeting is only going to further erode the already strained relations between the two countries. With Erdogan adept at speaking Trump’s language and the administration having no clear strategy for handling Turkey, the only deal Trump is going to get is a raw one.

Douglas Feith and Abram Shulsky discuss Trump's key foreign policy objectives, ending "endless wars," and promoting burden sharing in Foreign Policy:

He insisted that he’s against “endless wars” and that therefore American troops should come home. Fellow Republicans complain, however, that the withdrawal is undermining another key Trumpian idea: that the United States should push its partners abroad to do more to serve their common interests.

...

Two of the president’s key thoughts—ending “endless wars” and promoting burden sharing—are clashing with each other in Syria. Caught in the middle are not only the lives of foreign partners but important U.S. interests that even the most tough-minded, anti-sentimental, and “America First” Trump loyalist should want to protect.

Rebeccah Heinrichs discusses Trump's decision to lift sanctions on Turkey in an interview on Fox News. 

Michael Doran on U.S. ties with Turkey in National Review: 

This is a logic that Trump supporters in the foreign policy community embraced. Bush administration alum Michael Doran explained at a Hudson Institute panel, "We borrowed a Russian and Iranian proxy, and it was strategically stupid," Doran added. "Everyone knows we're leaving sooner or later. Turkey is going to be there forever, and the Turks know this as well. So we have to work through them, largely on their terms."

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