Donald Trump will give a press conference on China on Friday, the American president announced Thursday, which according to his secretary of state Mike Pompeo should crack down on spying by Chinese students. "We will announce tomorrow what we are going to do with China," Donald Trump told reporters from the Oval Office. "We are not happy with China . "
The statement comes in an explosive climate: the Republican billionaire has raised his voice in recent weeks by accusing China of being responsible for the spread of the new coronavirus across the planet, and has promised retaliation. American Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo also said on Wednesday that Hong Kong no longer enjoys the promised autonomy from Beijing, and therefore cannot continue to enjoy trade privileges with the United States. On the same day, the United States Congress passed a bill to punish Chinese officials accused of "mass internment" of Uighur Muslims.
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According to the New York Times , the US government is preparing to expel thousands of Chinese students who are linked to Chinese military schools. "They shouldn't be here, in our schools, spying. As a former CIA director, I take the threat of espionage in our country seriously , " reacted Mike Pompeo, on Fox News. "President Trump, I'm sure, will tackle this. I do not want to anticipate what he will say tomorrow [Friday] , but the Americans must know that the Chinese Communist Party has woven an enormous influence here in the United States, " he continued.
Asked about the risk of "anti-Asian racism" , the American diplomat replied: "This is not waving the red cloth, it is not racist. The Chinese people are a great people . ”
According to the Institute for International Education (IIE), an American association that promotes international student exchanges, the Chinese are the most numerous foreign students in the United States, with nearly 370,000 of them in 2018 -2019, or a third of the total.