Pompeo Photo:AFP
Chinese netizens and experts ridiculed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the man US media have painted as the worst secretary of state in history, after he launched an anti-China Twitter tirade on social media in recent days, a display writ large with his mixed feelings of frustration, the sense of failure and anxiety over his own future political path, some experts said.
A long-term anti-China hawk in the Trump administration, Pompeo tweeted around 30 anti-China posts during the weekend, including verbal attacks on the Communist Party of China (CPC), Chinese media entities, policies concerning the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Hong Kong, the South China Sea, China's response to the COVID-19 outbreak and so on.
These frequently tweeted offensive posts did not surprise many Chinese, given Pompeo's consistent anti-China rhetoric echoing the Trump administration's tough China policy. However, more netizens began to wonder if the Twitter account of the secretary of state of the world's most powerful country has become an anti-China bot that aims to incite anti-China sentiment without taking any rational thinking into account at all, although this would be in vain.
Just before Pompeo unleashed this intense but apparently irrational criticism against the Chinese government, Chinese policies and the country's ruling party, he revealed a so-called fact sheet published on the website of the US Department of State on Friday, targeting the Wuhan Institute of Virology, trying to shift the blame to China on the question of the origin of the coronavirus just as WHO experts are working with their Chinese counterparts in China on the matter.
"Pompeo is now at the stage of physical and psychological hysteria. Why? Because he is facing such a huge failure in his own political career and rising anxiety in his final days after he realized that he followed the wrong guy as his boss, especially after the Capitol Hill riots," Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University, told the Global Times on Sunday.
Pompeo continued shifting the blame to China on the COVID-19 epidemic and the question of the origin of the virus, which aims to hide his own failed governance as well as that of other US officials, which has caused nearly 400,000 deaths in the US. It is a typical pass-the-buck strategy, reflecting his extreme and paranoid mindset, Shen noted.
While some US media said the end of Pompeo's tenure would be remembered by a snub from US European allies as EU officials were not willing to meet him following the Capitol Hill riot on January 6, more American elites including the former US secretary of state Rex Tillerson have realized that Trump's foreign policy was a disaster and Pompeo is a major part of that, analysts said.
Chinese netizens and experts see Pompeo's unleashing a series of actions while being much more active in criticizing China on social media as a way of "urging others not to forget him" as the world is now waiting for the Biden administration to formulate new China and Asia strategies.
Such final-minute reckless moves have also been snubbed by Chinese officials. Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told a press conference on Friday that he will not waste time rebutting Pompeo's claims on the South China Sea.
"What he is doing now is pushing an endless cycle of self-praising and congratulatory tweets to bump up his own legacy and achievements in office in looking toward further political goals," Tom Fowdy, a British political and international relations analyst and a graduate of Durham and Oxford universities, told the Global Times on Sunday.
Previously, Pompeo was rumored to be interested in running for the US senate, but he has also been repeatedly linked to a US presidential bid in 2024, according to media reports. However, experts see the chance of Pompeo pursuing such a political goal as much slimmer after the Capitol Hill riot.
From ending restrictions on Taiwan relations, to imposing sanctions on Chinese individuals and entities, to making surprise decisions on other countries including Cuba and Iran, Pompeo hitting others in a last-minute push is considered as an abnormal outcome of policy decision-making without the coordination and support of other policies, experts said, noting that it could also be an attempt to wreck and poison foreign policy for Biden.
Some Chinese experts warned earlier that as the clock runs out, the Trump administration is more likely to be in a state of uncontrolled chaos and political figures like Pompeo are maximizing his power to make as much noise as possible, which puts the world in danger.