“'You go back all the way to Tiananmen Square. We’ve known the nature of this regime, and frankly, freedom-loving people across the world who have known the nature of authoritarian regimes throughout history. And yet we ignored it,' Pompeo answered.
Pompeo explained that the reason for the disregard of the CCP’s (Chinese Communist Party) grave human rights violations was a great extent due to the existence of a belief that if the United States engaged in fair and reciprocal trade and engagement, the situation would ameliorate. However, reality showed that the idea was clearly “false all the way through.”
He continued to answer by saying that President Donald Trump understood the failure of that engagement policy from the outset and changed the American stance fundamentally, adding that it was not just the United States that has changed its view of China, but the whole West.
'Even when you look at Europe and Australia and Southeast Asia, they know to, they know that the Chinese Communist Party is up to no good.'
Pompeo added that while dissidents were warning about CCP wrongdoing, the United States was involved in very serious counterterrorism operations and the focus was taken off the CCP.
'We took our eye off this enormous threat and now it’s now upon us. It’s now inside the gates, the Chinese Communist Party is here in America, and the Trump administration has begun in every dimension to turn the ship in the right direction, to get America to once again do the right thing and protect itself from this communist threat in China.'” - READ MORE / EpochTimes