The head of American diplomacy Mike Pompeo accused Wednesday, September 23 China of trying to "
foment
" movements of anger in the United States through its criticism of racism.
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The Chinese Communist Party "
thinks it can stifle the American voices that demand it to be accountable by shouting louder to denounce racism,
" he said during an unusual intervention for a secretary of state in front of Republican parliamentarians of Wisconsin, a hotly contested state ahead of the November presidential election.
"
He wants to foment troubles like those we saw in Minneapolis, Portland or here, in Kenosha,
" he added to the State Capitol.
“
It's appalling.
We cannot let it happen,
”he insisted.
The United States has faced an unprecedented wave of anger over racism and police brutality since an African American, George Floyd, died of suffocation under the knee of a white policeman in May in Minneapolis, State of Minnesota.
The movement sometimes peppered with violence between demonstrators and the police was particularly followed in Portland, Oregon, where President Donald Trump denounces “
anarchist agitators
”.
It was revived in late August when Jacob Blake, a young black man, was seriously injured by a white policeman in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Mike Pompeo, anti-China hawk
Mike Pompeo, one of the Trump administration's main anti-China hawks, cited a letter from a Chinese diplomat to an elected official in Wisconsin to support his accusations.
The letter referred
to Beijing's “
firm opposition
” to “
racial discrimination and xenophobia
” against the Chinese community over the coronavirus.
"
The justified anger of America against the Chinese Communist Party for its coronavirus management has nothing to do with racial issues but has everything to do with the dead, school children deprived and lost jobs
," said he insisted.
President Trump and his Secretary of State have accused China since the spring of having initially lied about the severity of Covid-19 and therefore of allowing the epidemic to spread.
They regularly evoke the "
Chinese virus
", a formula which arouses the ire of Beijing but which has also been denounced as stigmatizing by many Americans of Asian origin.
