THINK TANK FUNDING
Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Tuesday called for US think tanks to be more transparent about their funding by foreign governments, especially sources in China and Russia. He said in a written statement that it is not required under law but is needed “To protect the integrity of civil society institutions, the Department requests henceforth that think tanks and other foreign policy organizations that wish to engage with the Department disclose prominently on their websites funding they receive from foreign governments, including state-owned or state-operated subsidiary entities.” This announcement comes as the Trump Administration continues cracking down on foreign influences on the US political system.
CHINA
China is continuing influences campaign inside the United States, according to Secretary Pompeo. In a recent press interview he said, when asked about Chinese activities in the US, that “We have inside our own classrooms, in K-12 institutions in Georgia and my home state of Kansas, all across America, we have the Chinese Communist Party under the veil of these things called Confucius Institutes impacting our kids, putting their propaganda on top of our children. It’s unacceptable, and we are working to, by the end of the year, have them out of every school all across America.” Pompeo said US schools need to “face up to the fact that this money is being used to subvert our democracy, to undermine our way of life, and we should simply say it’s unacceptable, we’ll find another way to underwrite our schools, to pay for our kids to go where they need to go.” He called taking money from the Chinese Communist Party to keep our schools afloat an unacceptable tradeoff.
ISRAEL AND MIDDLE EAST PEACE
Recent breakthroughs by the Trump Administration toward lasting peace and stability in the Middle East have gone almost unnoticed in much of the American institutional media. In an interview Thursday Secretary Pompeo said that what the President has “done has been important for citizens all across America. I was a soldier once, a long time ago now. We will have few American young men and women who have to go to the Middle East and fight because of the work that the United States has done under President Trump’s leadership. We now have two countries who have accepted that Israel’s here to stay, that it’s the Jewish homeland.” Pompeo said they want to partner with it, not hate it and that the Administration intends to find more countries that will want to do that as well.
The Secretary said Washington is flipping the traditional script. “The old story that – for eight years, President Obama said well, you can’t do anything until you solve the problem Israel and the Palestinians. The truth is people in the Middle East and the Gulf States, they want peace too, and the Abraham Accords have now begun to deliver on that important promise.” According to Pompeo, it will save the lives of America’s armed forces and create less risk that a terror event that starts in the Middle East will come to our homeland.
MAYANMAR
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HONG KONG
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has systematically dismantled the autonomy that Beijing promised to the Hong Kong people and the world in a UN-registered treaty, accord to State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus. “Through the imposition of the National Security Law, the CCP has crippled democratic institutions, human rights, judicial independence, and individual freedoms in Hong Kong. The United States has publicly condemned an increasing number of problematic actions taken by Beijing and Hong Kong authorities to stifle dissent and eviscerate Hong Kong’s autonomy.”
These include the installation of a mainland security agency, mass arrests of peaceful protestors, the politically motivated delay of the September 2020 Legislative Council elections, and the capture and detention of Hong Kong democratic activists attempting to leave Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Autonomy Act requires the Secretary of State to submit a report to Congress identifying foreign persons who are materially contributing to, have materially contributed to, or attempt to materially contribute to the failure of China to meet its obligations under the Sino-British Joint Declaration or Hong Kong’s Basic Law. According to Ortagus, this year’s report includes ten PRC and Hong Kong officials whose actions have undermined freedoms of assembly, speech, press, or the rule of law, or whose actions have reduced the high degree of autonomy of Hong Kong.
DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.
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