Secretary Of State Mike Pompeo Calls Out China For Trying To ‘Exploit’ George Floyd’s Death
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took to Twitter on Saturday, calling out China for their attempt to “exploit” the death of George Floyd.
Pompeo tweeted his frustration with China using the demonstrations that protest against Floyd’s death and overall police brutality to supposedly settle a score about the United States’ actions toward the Hong Kong protesters.
“The Chinese Communist Party’s [CCP] callous attempts to exploit George Floyd’s tragic death for its own political gain will fail,” the secretary of state tweeted Saturday.
“During the best of times, Beijing ruthlessly imposes communism. Amid the most difficult challenges, the United States secures freedom.”
Pompeo appeared to be referencing Chinese officials’ recent moves on social media and in their state-run media to support governmental insurrection by the protesters, in retaliation for U.S. support of the 2019 Hong Kong protesters.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying tweeted the link to an RT America video, which she prefaced with the words “THUGS & HEROES HYPOCRISY.” In another tweet, the spokesperson said that the country “strongly” opposes “all forms of racial discrimination and inflammatory expressions of racism and hatred.”
The video was titled “America in crisis: Days of rage sweep US cities” and highlighted the violent nature that some protests took, calling attention to the divided opinions seeming to course through the nation as the Black Lives Matter movement calls for sweeping change.
The editor-in-chief of the Global Times, Hu Xijin, went so far as to share a composite photo of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and call out the senator’s different comments on the Hong Kong protests vs. those that took place following George Floyd’s death.
One Senator, Two Systems pic.twitter.com/oCif5JXGMq
— Hu Xijin ??? (@HuXijin_GT) June 5, 2020
According to The Hill, the state media has extensively covered protests, with one state agency calling it “Pelosi’s beautiful landscape,” a not-so-veiled reference to the time House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the Hong Kong protests “a beautiful sight to behold.”
China has not restricted their comments on American politics to the protests, however. As The Inquisitr previously reported, Chinese officials mocked Donald Trump for going to a bunker when demonstrators were protesting outside the White House.
The officials said that Trump had a double standard when he cracked down on protesters in the District of Columbia.
“Mr. President, don’t go hide behind the secret service,” Hu wrote in a series of tweets. “Go to talk to the demonstrators seriously. Negotiate with them, just like you urged Beijing to talk to Hong Kong rioters.”
Chinese and United States relations have been somewhat strained since American health officials speculated that the communist country failed to offer factual information about the origins of the novel coronavirus.
