Secretary of State Michael Pompeo warned lawmakers that the threat from the Chinese Communist Party is “inside the gates” during a meeting with House Republican lawmakers on Friday.
Pompeo told members of the conservative Republican Study Committee that as a former lawmaker, he is aware of the threat posed by China but that he did not appreciate “the scope and the scale and the nature” of how close the threat is until he became Central Intelligence Agency director.
“This fight is inside the gates today … Containing where they are today leaves them in our institutions of higher learning. It leaves them in our high schools; it leaves them in our PTA groups. It leaves them inside our city councils and our state legislatures all across America. This is a deep effort that has been going on for 50 years. Republicans and Democrats alike refuse to deal with it, and we started to and did,” he said.
“We not only got it right, and frankly, I think there is some bipartisan basis, I hope, that we can continue to get this right,” he added.
He noted that the Trump administration worked successfully to build an “enormous coalition” with the Indians, Australians, Japanese, the South Koreans, and in some parts of Europe to counter China. He said 120 international telecommunications companies have now forsworn any Chinese technology in their system. – READ MORE
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