Mike Pompeo slams China over LAC faceoff, says 'Chinese took incredibly aggressive action'

In response to the recent faceoff between Indian and Chinese militaries in Ladakh, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said on Wednesday that the Chinese took "incredibly aggressive actions" and the Indians have "done their best to respond" to that.

In his daily briefing, Pompeo said that he has spoken with his Indian counterpart, Dr. S Jaishankar, "a number of times" on the border tension. "I have spoken with Foreign Minister S Jaishankar a number of times about this. Chinese took incredibly aggressive actions and Indians have done their best to respond to that," the top US diplomat said.

He said the aggression shown by the Communist regime in Beijing on the front with New Delhi is not an isolated incident, but needs to be put in the larger geopolitical context. Referring to a large number of territorial disputes, both on land and sea, that China has with its neighbours, Pompeo said it is "unequalled, anyplace else in the world".

"There aren't many neighbours that can satisfactorily say that they know where their sovereignty ends and that the Chinese Communist Party will respect that sovereignty. That's certainly true now for the people of Bhutan as well," Mike Pompeo said, referring to Beijing's latest territorial claims in Bhutan which Thimphu has strongly protested.

The remarks came after senior Indian and American diplomats interacted virtually as part of India-US Foreign Office Consultations on Tuesday and discussed ongoing threats to the rules-based international order and maritime security. Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, David Hale, have affirmed the US and Indian visions of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, where all countries can prosper, and agreed to work with other Indo-Pacific partners to bring these visions to reality.

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'Evaluating CCP Threat'

Furthermore, the US Secretary of State also said that the government is constantly evaluating plans to ban Chinese social media apps like TikTok to ensure the privacy of American citizens. Pompeo asserted that the Trump administration shall take steps to prevent the CCP from accessing private information belonging to Americans. Maintaining that is a project of real scale, he affirmed that the communications infrastructure must be based on the Western ideal of private property. 

The remarks came after India last week banned 59 Chinese apps following violent clashes in Ladakh's Galwan Valley with Chinese troops in mid-June that left 20 Indian Army jawans dead.

The US has repeatedly assured India of support in the face of Chinese expansionist design in the Indo-Pacific region. 

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