It’s always the way with political memoirs that everyone sifts them for the high-grade gossip. So it is with Mike Pompeo’s memoir, “Never Give an Inch” released this week. Media reports have understandably focused on the former CIA director and Secretary of State’s opinions on Donald Trump, John Bolton, Kim Jong-Un and a bunch of other folks.
But as is often the case, one of the biggest stories in the book has so far been overlooked.
When Pompeo was Secretary of State he took probably the most hawkish view any American official has yet taken towards the Communist Party of China. In a speech in October 2019, he told an audience of business-people (many of whom made money in China) that the Communist Party of China is “a Marxist-Leninist party focused on struggle and international domination.” He couldn’t be more correct. But something that happened afterwards proved his point.
As Pompeo relates it, he wanted to give a major speech on China and especially the way in which the CCP is distorting universities and other research institutes inside the United States. Not just by funding these institutions, and directing their research, but by trying to turn Chinese students into agents of the communist regime. It’s a crucial subject and was high time that an American official made such an intervention.
The speech was scheduled to take place at MIT, which had previously held an MIT-China Summit in Beijing sponsored by Chinese tech companies including ones that are now under sanctions for providing technology to crush human rights in China.
But shortly before the speech MIT said they couldn’t host the US Secretary of State after all. A strange move, no? Well according to Pompeo he picked up the phone and spoke with the president of MIT, Rafael Reif. And Reif claimed that there was no way that the speech could go ahead because of the risk of offending Chinese students. By MIT’s own data in 2021-22 a full 25% of international students at the university were from China.
In fact what was clear was that the no-platforming of an American Secretary of State on an American campus had nothing to do with a fear of upsetting Chinese students. What Reif and his fellow academic cowards were afraid of was that their money spigot from Beijing would be shut off.
If a speech were to take place on the MIT campus that upset the communists in China then the CCP would retaliate in a way that would cost MIT financially. Not just via Chinese students attending the university and paying full tuition fees, but in donations which have come to MIT from Chinese state-linked companies and even the Chinese government itself.
In the end Pompeo’s people tried a number of other American universities which passed for the same reasons. He was eventually able to give the speech at Georgia Tech where, as Pompeo says, many Chinese students came up to him afterwards to thank him for his remarks. So much for the great risk of offense.
It is a scandalous tale. But the real problem is that the CCP has control over so many universities and other research institutions in this country. The communists rely on America to train up many of their own people. And they use technology that comes from MIT and other institutions to make sure that their surveillance state keeps as strong a grip as possible on their own benighted people.
All the time they have an increasing number of this country’s institutions by the balls. And they choose their means of intimidation in this country very well. As Pompeo says, “An unhappy CCP will pull students and grants and programs not only to get even but to send a message: ‘We own you.’ ”
This is a scandal that has gone on for far too long. Why should institutes of learning in the world’s leading democracy be blackmailed and used by the communists in Beijing? Why should we prove to be the useful idiots and helpers to a regime which oppresses its own people and wants to replace this country as the world´s dominant power? Why, in short, are we actually being bought up by our main international competitor?
Pompeo says that American schools that are “hooked on the CCP’s sugar must go into rehab.”
Frankly I think a lot of institutions — including some of our financial institutions — should join them there. In the end it´s about whose side you are on. It would be good to know that American universities were on America’s side — for once.
Shoplifting scourge makes us chumps
I wrote last week about the free-for-all in New York’s stores. Well this week it was Duane Reade. As I was searching for my toothpaste I noticed a gentleman shoveling bottles of Pepto Bismol off the shelf into a huge travel bag. A little too much for one person’s stomach needs.
I went to get some store staff and it turned out they knew him. “Not today, Al” one of them said. Apparently he was a regular. As he walked out with all the products he had taken I asked the store worker why Duane Reade don’t mind this. I was told that there’s no point calling the police because they won’t be interested. And employees are told that they should do nothing to stop a thief. The most they can do is ask if they “need help,” as though the thief might require assistance.
As I stood at the checkout I admit that I started to feel like the idiot. Why should I be the only mug in this store who pays? All my items were overpriced. Once you added in all the taxes my small number of items came to almost 40 bucks.
Duane Reade don’t appear to care about shoplifting. And they clearly don’t care about passing on the costs to paying customers.
In New York today it’s not just that crime pays. Being law-abiding costs you.
»Mike Pompeo’s MIT-killed lecture on China’s influence on US universities«