By Hannah Ng
February 3, 2023Updated: February 3, 2023
Former U.S. Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo warned Chinese leader Xi Jinping intends to reign the world
and that he poses a bigger threat than Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“He wants to own you. …
He wants hegemonic intent across the world with his Marxist-Leninist vision and
Chinese economic and political dominance in every corner of the world,” Pompeo
said during an interview with Sky News on Feb 2.
He called Xi’s intent a “vicious
objective” and added, “We have an obligation to the next generation to push
back against it.”
When asked by anchor Beth
Rigby if he thinks Xi is more dangerous than his close ally, Putin, Pompeo
said, “Absolutely. [It’s] Not even close.”
The former U.S. official
recalled that when he interacted with Xi, “He [Xi] was focused on his ambitious
objective.”
Pompeo said that Xi
“believes he’s going to dominate the world. … He believes this is not
folderol.”
And Xi has full capacity
to fulfill that end, Pompeo noted, as “the globe is dependent on him
economically, he has 1.4 billion people.”
“He has an economy that
rivals the size of that of the United States of America, a highly capable space
and military and cyber program. And that’s the capabilities. And we have now
also seen his intention,” he said.
Meanwhile, Pompeo said
that even though Putin believes in a greater Russia, “he has no illusions about
his capacity to dominate the world.”
“Vladimir Putin has a
very capable nuclear program and an economy that is dependent on a single
industry. And if we produce energy in America, that industry would be a lot
less valuable to him,” he said.
“Those are two
fundamentally different risks for our way of life in Europe, in the United
States, in Asia, in the Middle East, everywhere,” Pompeo added.
Putin’s Ambition Stays Unchanged
However, Pompeo believed
that the Russian leader is a “bad guy.”
He recalled when looking
into Putin’s eye, “I didn’t see a soul. I thought [it was] evil. Make no
mistake about it, he’s the bad guy.”
Pompeo believed that
Putin’s ambition “hasn’t changed,” since he made a move to take Crimea back in
2014.
“We always think about
this war as having started on February 24th, now almost exactly a year ago. It
actually started in 2014,” he said.
“Then, for four years,
Putin doesn’t invade Europe. Doesn’t take another single inch. And then, we
leave office and he goes at it again. I believe that’s not a coincidence,” he
added.
Pompeo believed that
Putin had been deterred by the seriousness of the Trump administration.
“We had put his economy
in harm’s way. We built the American military. We had created a situation where
NATO members put $40 billion more into NATO,” he contended.
“I think there was just a
fundamentally different understanding in the mind of Vladimir Putin. And this
deterrence depends on your adversary’s perception of risk,” he added.
Pompeo believed that
Putin felt a lot of risk if he made a move against Ukraine “under our watch.”
“I think he thought there
was no risk doing it when President [Joe] Biden was,” Pompeo said.
Slow Reactions
Pompeo did not consent to
the opinion that President Joe Biden is leading the West’s response to the
invasion of Ukraine and criticized how other nations had handled the crisis.
“The West has been slow,
and late, and fearful of escalation, and that’s been a mistake,” he said.
“And so we should do our
best to fix that today. We should provide them the things that they need and
put Ukraine and the West in a place where Vladimir Putin will see the handwriting
on the wall. This is how you restore deterrence,” he added.
Pompeo laid out steps
that could lead to “a negotiated diplomatic solution to the war.”
“It would begin with the
following. The United States, and most importantly, Europe actually providing
the tools that the Ukrainian people need to fight and defend their own
sovereignty,” he said.
Pompeo said that the move
would “put President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people in the position where
President Putin would be negotiating from weakness.”
“The ultimate resolution
they will have to sort their way through,” he said.
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