{"id":38607,"date":"2020-04-12T07:59:31","date_gmt":"2020-04-12T11:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=38607"},"modified":"2020-04-12T07:59:31","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T11:59:31","slug":"has-anyone-been-paying-attention-to-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=38607","title":{"rendered":"Has Anyone Been Paying Attention To This?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Conservative Treehouse<\/a> posted an article today quoting some recent remarks by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.<\/p>\n

The article includes a video of the remarks, but below is the transcript of the important points:<\/p>\n

[Transcript at 01:45<\/a>] [\u2026] \u201cLast year, I received an invitation to an event that promised to be, quote, \u201can occasion for exclusive deal-making.\u201d It said, quote, \u201cthe opportunities for mutually beneficial economic development between China and our individual states [are] tremendous,\u201d end of quote.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cDeal-making sounds like it might have come from President Trump, but the invitation was actually from a former governor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was being invited to the U.S.-China Governors\u2019 Collaboration Summit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was an event co-hosted by the National Governors Association and something called the Chinese People\u2019s Association For Friendship and Foreign Countries. Sounds pretty harmless.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What the invitation did not say is that the group \u2013 the group I just mentioned \u2013 is the public face of the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s official foreign influence agency, the United Front Work Department.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, I was lucky. I was familiar with that organization from my time as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But it got me thinking.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How many of you made the link between that group and Chinese Communist Party officials?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What if you made a new friend while you were at that event?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What if your new friend asked you for introductions to other politically connected and powerful people?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What if your new friend offered to invest big money in your state, perhaps in your pension, in industries sensitive to our national security?<\/strong><\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t hypotheticals. These scenarios are all too true, and they impact American foreign policy significantly.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Indeed, last year, a Chinese Government-backed think tank in Beijing produced a report that assessed all 50 of America\u2019s governors on their attitudes towards China. They labeled each of you \u201cfriendly,\u201d \u201chardline,\u201d or \u201cambiguous.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll let you decide where you think you belong. Someone in China already has. Many of you, indeed, in that report are referenced by name.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So here\u2019s the lesson: The lesson is that competition with China is not just a federal issue. It\u2019s why I wanted to be here today, Governor Hogan. It\u2019s happening in your states with consequences for our foreign policy, for the citizens that reside in your states, and indeed, for each of you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And, in fact, whether you are viewed by the CCP as friendly or hardline, know that it\u2019s working you, know that it\u2019s working the team around you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Competition with China is happening inside of your state, and it affects our capacity to perform America\u2019s vital national security functions.\u201d (Keep Reading<\/a><\/strong>)<\/p>\n

The author of the article notes that he believes that President Trump and Secretary Pompeo have a list of the governors that are being influenced by China. That list may come in handy in the coming days of balancing the response to the coronavirus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today quoting some recent remarks by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The article includes a video of the remarks, but below is the transcript of the important points: [Transcript at 01:45] [\u2026] \u201cLast year, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3059,12540,659,253,7278,8615,10723,7202,1369,10589,8803,11690,11430],"class_list":["post-38607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-beijing","tag-ccp","tag-central-intelligence-agency","tag-china","tag-chinese","tag-director-of-the-central-intelligence-agency","tag-economic-development","tag-national-governors-association","tag-national-security","tag-president-trump","tag-secretary-of-state","tag-secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo","tag-the-conservative-treehouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38608,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38607\/revisions\/38608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}