Pompeo accuses China of using 'tactical situation' to threaten others

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China of using 'tactical situation' to threaten others on the Sino-India border and the South China Sea.

During an interview with Fox News, he said that the threat posed by China is real.

"The Chinese Communist Party has been on this effort, on this march, for an awfully long time. They'll certainly use a tactical situation on the ground to their advantage. But each of the problems that you identified there are threats that they have been making for an awfully long time,'' he said.

Threats like the one that is happening on its border with India, he said.

Several areas along the LAC in Ladakh and North Sikkim have witnessed major military build-up by both the Indian and Chinese armies recently, in a clear signal of escalating tension and hardening of respective positions by the two sides even two weeks after they were engaged in two separate face-offs.

"General Secretary Xi (Jinping) is intent on building out his military capabilities. Our Department of Defence is doing everything it can to make sure it understands this threat,'' he said.

China's President Xi, 66, is also the head of the two-million-strong military.

"I am confident that under President (Donald) Trump, our Department of Defence, our military, our national security establishment will keep us in a position where we can protect the American people, and indeed we can be good partners with our allies from India, from Australia, from South Korea, from Japan, from Brazil, from Europe, all around the world. We can be good partners alongside them and ensure that the next century remains a Western one modelled on the freedoms that we have here in the United States,'' he said.