China: Pompeo's Diplomacy 'Not Befitting of a Christian'

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s actions in blaming China for the Chinese coronavirus pandemic are “not befitting of a Christian,” an editorial in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper People’s Daily, claimed on Thursday.

“U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo often proclaims to be a ‘devout evangelical Christian.’ On the surface, he seems to be one,” the article’s “Beijing-based” author wrote. “But by blaming China for the pandemic, claiming Wuhan to be the source of the virus and calling the novel coronavirus a ‘Chinese virus,’ Pompeo … create[s] a web of lies, saying China covered up the facts of the outbreak to cheat the world, in an attempt to shift the blame for the pandemic on China.”

“One wonders whether Pompeo, who has spread rumors and created panic, has read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God,'” the author questioned.

This religious quote is one of many strewn throughout the article, along with several references to Christian doctrine. While using Christianity to condemn Pompeo, the article obscures the treatment of Christians by the Communist Party.

Officially an atheist regime, the Communist Party allows just five religions to legally operate in China. Christianity, Catholicism – considered separate from “Christianity” by the CCP – Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam are officially tolerated in China, though the CCP has long persecuted members of these religious groups, especially Christians. Only houses of worship run by Communist Party leaders, preaching communist ideology, are legal.

During the ongoing Chinese coronavirus pandemic, the CCP has taken advantage of restrictions on movement and bans on large gatherings to enforce a crackdown on Christian churches, many of which have been left empty due to the quarantine. On June 1, reports revealed that at least 48 Christian churches had been shut down by CCP authorities within a two week period in April in Yugan County, located in southeast China’s Jiangxi province. The closures left at least 100,000 local Christians without a house of worship, and some churches were even razed.

In a particularly cruel demonstration, CCP authorities demolished a Christian church in the northwest province of Qinghai on Easter Sunday this year.

Aside from its abuse of Christians, the CCP practices systemic ethnic cleansing of Uyghur Muslims in China’s northwest territory of Xinjiang, actions that fit the definition of genocide. Beijing ruthlessly preys upon impoverished nations, many of them home to vulnerable Christian minorities, with its pernicious Belt and Road Initiative to smother foreign countries in debt. CCP authorities regularly abduct, jail, silence and “disappear” their own people for attempting to stand up for free speech and free thought.

The CCP has repeatedly denied the fact that the ongoing Chinese coronavirus pandemic originated within its borders in Wuhan, China, as early as August 2019. It denies that China’s cover-up of its initial outbreak directly contributed to the virus’s spread out of China to the rest of the world, killing 486,101 people so far and robbing countless others of their future thanks to the economic devastation it has caused.