Not satisfied with destroying the crucial economic ties between the world’s two largest economies, and not satisfied with the insane declaration that China is an existential threat to the United States and must be confronted economically and militarily, Mike Pompeo has now shut down five different people-to-people exchange programs, all funded by China, declaring that government employees who participate in these programs are only allowed to meet “communists,” not “Chinese people.”
His declaration of Dec. 4 reads: “Today, the Department of State terminated five programs, disguised as `cultural exchanges,’ with the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.). These programs include the Policymakers Educational China Trip Program, the U.S.-China Friendship Program, the U.S.-China Leadership Exchange Program, and the U.S.-China Transpacific Exchange Program and the Hong Kong Educational and Cultural Program. Such programs, conducted under Section 108A of the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act (MECEA), allow U.S. government employees to travel using foreign government funds. While other programs funded under the auspices of the MECEA are mutually beneficial, the five programs in question are fully funded and operated by the P.R.C. government as soft power propaganda tools. They provide carefully curated access to Chinese Communist Party officials, not to the Chinese people, who do not enjoy freedoms of speech and assembly. The United States welcomes the reciprocal and fair exchange of cultural programs with P.R.C. officials and the Chinese people, but one-way programs such as these are not mutually beneficial.”
Also, on Dec. 3 the Defense Department added four major Chinese companies to the sanctions list, preventing business dealings with U.S. companies, including China’s largest chipmaker and a national offshore oil and gas producer, supposedly for ties to the PLA. This brings the list of Chinese companies so designated to 55. The State Department also declared that visas for members of the Chinese Communist Party and their families were henceforth only good for one month, rather than ten years.
