Mike Pompeo’s State Department in Full-Fledged Attack Mode on China’s Belt and Road Initiative

May 22, 2020 (EIRNS)—Alice G. Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State South and Central Asian Affairs, in a press conference yesterday, initiated an attack on China’s Belt and Road Initiative with Pakistan, the highly ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). She indicated that the principal—and perhaps only—purpose of Mike Pompeo’s State Department is to attack the principles of John Quincy Adams by undoing development, and by provoking war.

Wells stated, “I’ve enumerated the United States government’s concerns over the CPEC, lack of transparency involved in the projects, and unfair rates of profit that are guaranteed to Chinese organizations.”

“I think at a time of crisis like COVID, when the world is reeling from the economic consequences of having shut parts of the economy, it is really incumbent on China to take steps to alleviate the burden this predatory, unsustainable, and unfair lending is going to cause to Pakistan.” She said that she is joining other voices in the region calling on China to provide relief from Belt and Road debt—which China had been doing all along, without the excuse of the COVID crisis.

The CPEC runs from the Arabian Sea, through a thicket of development corridors inside of Pakistan, over a new 1,100-kilometer railway, all the way into Kashi, China.