Mike Pompeo said Chinese companies often do not compete on a “fair and equitable basis”.
PARAMARIBO, Suriname / GEORGETOWN, Guyana:
Chinese embassies in Suriname and Guyana on Friday accused US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of “spreading rumors” and “dirtying” Beijing after Washington’s top diplomat criticized Chinese companies on tour of four stages in South America.
In a joint appearance with newly elected Surinamese President Chan Santokhi on Thursday, Pompeo said Chinese companies often do not compete with each other on a “fair and equitable basis.”
“We’ve seen the Chinese Communist Party invest in countries, and it all seems good at first, and then it all crumbles when the political costs associated with it become clear,” Pompeo said.
His comments came after a series of oil discoveries off the coast of Suriname, whose trade relations with China developed under former president of the small South American country Desi Bouterse, a strongman in the military who oversaw an economic collapse and lost a re-election candidacy to Santokhi earlier. this year.
China lent and invested heavily in resource-rich Latin America during the decade-long commodities boom that largely ended in 2014. The Trump administration has sought to highlight the heavy debts and the economic deterioration that these ties have left with close Chinese trading partners like Venezuela and Ecuador.
The Chinese Embassy in Paramaribo said in a statement that “any attempt to sow discord between China and Suriname is doomed to failure.”
“We advise Mr. Pompeo to respect the facts and the truth, to abandon arrogance and prejudices, to stop smearing and spreading rumors about China,” he added.
The Chinese Embassy in neighboring Guyana issued a similar statement later Friday after Pompeo’s visit to Georgetown, saying Beijing “does not attach any political conditions to pragmatic bilateral cooperation.”
Santokhi had told reporters on Thursday that Suriname’s relations with China were not a topic of conversation when he met Pompeo.
“It’s not about making choices,” he said.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
