Mike Pompeo is laying ‘landmines’ on Taiwan policy, former Australian leader warns
- Kevin Rudd also says the US secretary of state has been ‘salting the earth in the US-China relationship’
- Pompeo has lifted restrictions on American officials visiting the self-ruled island, further inflaming tensions with Beijing
Speaking with CNBC on Monday, Rudd – Australia’s leader from 2007 to 2010 and also in 2013 – accused Pompeo of making such moves out of self-interest.
“What Pompeo is doing is laying a whole series of landmines for the incoming [Joe] Biden administration … salting the earth in the US-China relationship in general, and laying landmines on Taiwan in particular,” said Rudd, now president of the New York-based Asia Society Policy Institute.
“The politics of this is to ensure that any change to any of those hardline positions … is saying those changes are embraced by the Biden administration, and Pompeo will be free to attack Biden and the Biden administration as having gone soft on Beijing,” Rudd said.
That was because Pompeo was paving the way to be nominated as the Republican candidate for the next US presidential election, according to Rudd.
