{ "error": "", "type": "text", "title": "Secretary Pompeo's Interview with Laura Ingraham of Fox News - Human Rights in China", "slug": "secretary-pompeos-interview-with-laura-ingraham-of-fox-news-human-rights-in-china", "text": "
\"QUESTION:<\/strong> The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom lists China and Saudi Arabia right in \u2013 well, one, and I think Saudi Arabia is number three \u2013 of the worst violators of human rights. I was thinking about this yesterday, because you think of the old Soviet Union and President Reagan, who both of us admire so much; we didn\u2019t do that, really heavily engage trade with the Soviet Union \u2013 not just because of nukes, but because of what they were doing on human rights. So how do we justify this huge trading relationship with Saudi Arabia and China given how we treat, then, North Korea and a place like Cuba? It seems like there\u2019s selective treatment of human rights violations.<\/p>\n SECRETARY POMPEO:<\/strong> So it\u2019s always the case when you\u2019re trying to advocate for America\u2019s interests that you have to weigh the relative concerns, and it is the case that each country presents its own situation. What I think we\u2019ve been incredibly consistent on is making sure that we identify, we call out these concerns. I\u2019ve done it with respect to China, I\u2019ve done it with respect to every place we find religious minorities being mistreated. We held the first-ever religious ministerial in the very room in which we\u2019re sitting here. It was quite an occasion \u2013 people from nearly every religion and 80 delegations. This administration is taking religious freedom all around the world, in China and other places, very seriously. [...]
This [China] is a nontransparent government. It is still a very centralized government. It treats our intellectual property horribly, it treats its religious minorities horribly. In each of these cases, we have opportunities. You\u2019ve seen what the President\u2019s doing with trade, to try and make it fair and reciprocal. What we\u2019re asking of China is to behave in a way that if they want to be a power, if they want to be on the global stage, they have to operate in a way that global leaders have for so often. And frankly, as you point out in the religious dimension, they\u2019ve not done that.\"<\/p>",
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