What makes a country 'free' or 'tyrannical'?

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in his recent speech at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, negated every aspect of China-US relations, maliciously attacked the leadership of the Communist Party of China and China's political system, and attempted to drive a wedge between the CPC and the Chinese people. He also wantonly criticized China's domestic and foreign policies, spread the so-called "China threat", and called for an anti-China alliance to contain China's development.

Pompeo's baseless, fact-distorting speech misrepresents history and the reality. It is full of ideological prejudice and driven by a Cold-War mentality. His remarks have not only been condemned by the Chinese people, but also criticized and opposed by sensible people in the United States as well as the international community.

To debunk the lies fabricated by Pompeo, let the facts speak for themselves.

Rumor: Mike Pompeo: The CCP will subvert the rules-based order that the free world have worked hard to build. The CCP's actions are the primary challenge today in the free world. The free world must triumph over this new tyranny. It's time for a new alliance of democracies. The division is between freedom and tyranny, not about siding with America or China.

Fact:

To arbitrarily label a country as "free" or "tyrannical" is a kind of groundless and preposterous arrogance and prejudice. The obsolete prejudices in the last century will not help solve the new problems in the 21st century. The call of our world today is peace and development and all countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are entitled to choose their own social system and development path. Preserving world peace and stability and achieving mutually-beneficial cooperation ought to be a common choice of the people of all countries around the world. To foment ideological confrontation is to intentionally lead the world into a new Cold War, and is a resurgence of the notorious McCarthyism that is going against the trend of the times.

-- Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his recent article published in Foreign Affairs magazine expressed concern of Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries over the tensions between the United States and China, saying that Asia-Pacific countries do not wish to be forced to choose between the two. He said regional arrangements should be open and inclusive. "They should not, whether by design or result, keep any party out, undermine existing cooperation arrangements, create rival blocs, or force countries to take sides...It is natural for big powers to compete. But it is their capacity for cooperation that is the true test of statecraft," he said.

-- Kishore Mahbubani, a professor at the National University of Singapore and a former Singaporean permanent representative to the United Nations, noted that China regained its strength by plugging into the rules-based global order established in 1945. He said China has no desire to overturn this order, and it would be happy to cooperate with America within it. "In short, a prosperous China can live together in peace with a prosperous America, as inconceivable as this thought might seem in the toxic political environment in the US"

-- On July 25, an online international meeting themed "No to the New Cold War," organized by scholars and activists from multiple countries, was streamed live on several platforms. One of the initiators, British scholar John Ross said the theme was not about a "pro-China" statement, but was because the US-led new Cold War will be against the interests of humanity and is a threat to humanity. He said the new Cold War is an attempt by the present US administration to impose its policies on the world and force other countries to follow.

-- The US administration has withdrawn from many international treaties and organizations and wantonly wields the big stick of sanctions, disregarding international obligations and norms. It has become the biggest destroyer of international order and the world's top source of instability. Many Western strategists have pointed out that it is absurd that the United States considers itself a representative of the "free world." By resorting to ideological tactics to build a coalition to contain China, the United States puts itself on the wrong side of history.

-- The United States has instigated multiple coups in other countries under the pretext of "freedom" that resulted in military governments coming to power, and provoked chaos through "color revolutions." Lindsey O'Rourke, an associate professor of Boston College's political science department, observed in her book "Covert Regime Change: America's Secret Cold War" that the United States carried out 64 regime-change operations in other countries between 1947 and 1989. The Manila Times reported in September 2019 that the United States had, in the last decade alone, invaded and managed regime change in over 20 countries around the world. Even today, people in countries including Libya and Syria are still suffering from turmoil caused by wars, with freedom from fear and scarcity nowhere in sight. The international community has seen it increasingly clear the real purpose of the United States' trumpeting for "freedom".

-- In an article by Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard University, which was titled "How to Ruin a Superpower" and published on Foreign Policy website on July 23, he pointed out the mistakes the United States committed, one of which was adopting a grand strategy of liberal hegemony in the uni-polar era, which sought to spread democracy, markets, and other liberal values far and wide and to bring the whole world into a "liberal order" that was designed and led by the United States.

-- Zheng Yongnian, a professor with the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, said in an article published in Lianhe Zaobao that an oversimplified classification of a country's political system as "democracy" or "autocracy/a system concentrating nationwide effort and resources on key national undertakings" will inevitably lead to politicization and ideologicalization, resulting in a double standard that prevents one from seeing the truth. The United States and Western "democracies" have always assumed a posture of being ready to wage a war against China for defending democracy, as if threats to Western democracy come from China. This is, in fact, utterly wrong. The threats to Western democracy only come from within, not from external challenges.

-- On July 25, experts and scholars from 48 countries held a meeting and issued a joint statement, pointing out that the words and deeds of the US government against China are becoming increasingly fierce, which poses a threat to world peace, and that a new Cold War in any form is completely against the interests of humanity. The attendees supported China and the United States developing relations on the basis of dialogue and jointly working for solidarity of mankind.