The vice-president’s remarks came almost three months into his administration’s trade war with Beijing
US Vice-President Mike Pence accused Beijing of using a “whole-of-government approach” to undermine the US political system and warned American companies, including tech giant Alphabet, which owns Google, to disengage from China until the country stops actions aimed at undermining the US’s “most cherished ideals”.
In a wide-ranging speech delivered on Thursday at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, Pence renewed claims by US President Donald Trump that China was seeking to interfere in the upcoming US midterm elections.
“As President Trump said just last week, we have found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 elections. Our intelligence community says that China is targeting US state and local governments and officials to exploit any divisions between federal and local levels on policy,” he said.
“What the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing across this country,” he added.
Pence used as an example of this interference a four-page advertisement that the state-owned China Daily newspaper placed in the Des Moines Register, criticising Trump’s trade policies.
Pence also used the speech to ramp up criticism of Beijing’s militarisation of the South China Sea; the tightening of religious freedoms for the country’s Muslims, Christians and Buddhists; and practices such as forced technology transfer that have fuelled the spiralling trade war initiated by the US.
“For a time, Beijing inched toward greater liberty and respect for human rights,” said Pence, who began his speech recounting a list of positive historical milestones in the US-China relationship. “But in recent years, it has taken a sharp U-turn toward control and oppression.”
The vice-president’s remarks came almost three months into his administration’s trade war with Beijing, opening up the rift on many more fronts.
On the trade and investment front, Pence singled out Alphabet’s Google division for its controversial re-entry into the Chinese market with a search engine specially designed for the country.
