Covid ‘just China’s first virus threat’, warns Mike Pompeo. By Greg Sheridan.
The world faces new pandemic outbreaks at least as deadly as COVID-19 because of the continued biological weapons research being undertaken in Chinese laboratories, Donald Trump’s secretary of state Mike Pompeo has declared.
“The Chinese Communist Party continues to engage in this sort of biological research,” Mr Pompeo told The Weekend Australian in a wide-ranging interview.
“The risk of this sort of thing happening again from a Chinese facility is real and significant. …
“I am highly confident the virus began in Wuhan, China,” he said. “I am reasonably confident it came from the (Wuhan Institute of Virology) laboratory. I am less certain of that and the CCP has diligently tried to make sure we never know. But the weight of evidence suggests it likely came from that laboratory.” …
“The central moment that the Chinese knew they had a virulent virus that was human-to-human transmissible, their choice was to lock down Wuhan and to lock down the world from understanding the risk that was presented to it. That cover-up alone, regardless of where the virus actually began, is something the CCP must be held to account for.” …
Mr Pompeo said the chief method of coercion Beijing employed was economic power, citing recent trade actions against Australia as an example. …
However, Mr Pompeo believes the US and its allies, including Australia, are not acting with sufficient vigour in the hi-tech competition with Beijing. …
Hi-tech fields such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing, blockchain and a few others would be the “commanding heights of the next generation” whereas in the past they were resources such as oil. “We must make sure the technology of the future is democratic technology and not totalitarian technology,” he said. …
Mr Pompeo strongly contests the idea that Beijing is a status quo power with limited objectives….
“The Chinese Communist Party deeply believes their Marxist/Leninist ideology is the right ideology for the world, and they attempt to impose that ideology everywhere. Their intentions are to undermine democracy.” …
Because of the Biden administration’s weakening of US sanctions on Iran, Mr Pompeo said Tehran now faced almost no limitations on the weapons systems it could acquire. …
Rumours are strong that Mr Pompeo plans to run for the presidency in 2024.
hat-tip Stephen Neil
