Pompeo’s Campaign for Total Telecom Break with China

Aug. 6, 2020 (EIRNS)—In an Aug. 5 press statement, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo presented a psychotic five-point program to totally cut all Chinese communication systems in or with the U.S., and more. His program, called Clean Path, was posed as if he had some sort of authority to implement it, although he generally does not. It should be read as a declaration of economic warfare leading to military confrontation, if Pompeo were allowed to carry it out.

“In April, I announced our team’s Clean Path initiative to keep Americans’ data safe from untrusted vendors. Today, I’m pleased to announce the expansion of the Clean Network with the launch of five new lines of effort:

“First, Clean Carrier. We are working to ensure that untrusted Chinese telecom companies don’t provide international telecommunications services between the United States and foreign destinations. I join Attorney General Barr, Secretary Esper, and Acting Secretary Wolf in urging the FCC to revoke and terminate the authorizations of China Telecom and three other companies providing services to and from the United States.

“Second, we call Clean Store. We want to see untrusted Chinese apps removed from U.S. app stores. President Trump has mentioned impending action on TikTok, and for good reason. With parent companies based in China, apps like TikTok, WeChat, and others are significant threats to the personal data of American citizens, not to mention tools for CCP content censorship.

“Third, Clean Apps. We’re working to prevent Huawei and other untrusted vendors from pre-installing or making available for download the most popular U.S. apps. We don’t want companies to be complicit in Huawei’s human rights abuses or the CCP’s surveillance apparatus.

“Fourth, Clean Cloud. We’re protecting Americans’ most sensitive personal information and our businesses’ most valuable intellectual property—including COVID vaccine research—from being accessed on cloud-based systems run by companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, China Mobile, China Telecom, and Tencent. The State Department will work closely with Commerce and other agencies to limit the ability of Chinese cloud service providers to collect, to store, and to process vast amounts of data and sensitive information here in the United States.

“Fifth and finally, Clean Cable. We’re working to ensure that the CCP can’t compromise information carried by the undersea cables that connect our country and others to the global internet. Huawei Marine significantly underbids other companies on multiple procurements to connect Asia, the Pacific, Africa, and Europe using Chinese state-backed underseas technology. We can’t allow that to continue. We call on all freedom-loving nations and companies to join the Clean Network.”

A Global Times editorial today responded in part: “[Pompeo’s] ambition is astonishing. After Pompeo announced the initiative at a press conference, most analysts believe it lacks substance. Pompeo neither specified the legal basis nor gave details on how to implement it.

Pompeo and his likes are the geopolitical madmen of the 21st century who try to transform people’s minds, reset global attention and reverse the direction of world development. They would never allow China’s peaceful rise.”