Vice President Mike Pence furrowed his brow, looked very concerned, and delivered a critical and hawkish speech aimed at China in Washington yesterday.
So, what did the Chinese government think of the Pence speech?
They weren't impressed, to say the least, and China's foreign ministry (their version of the State Department) responded by saying we should take care of our own problems.
Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Pence’s speech was full of lies and prejudice, and that it had made China “strongly indignant”. [...]
“A handful of politicians with Pence at their head have confused black with white on these issues, making irresponsible remarks and creating rumors to slander others,” Hua said.
Pence is “easily arrogant” about other countries, and yet turns a blind eye to the ills of his own country, instead trying to shift the focus of the American public onto other nations, she added.
“From the large-scale monitoring of the ‘Prismgate’ to frequent and serious shootings, from ubiquitous racial discrimination to the gap between the rich and the poor that is obvious at a glance, from sanctions against other countries, arbitrary withdrawal from international agreements, treaties, and misconduct, morality and trust have long since disappeared.”
It's not that I disagree with everything Mike Pence said about China's intervention in private business or it's shady relationship with Hong Kong's leadership, but we really don't have much room to talk and neither does Pence himself.
Donald Trump did not invent shootings, racial discrimination, or the wealth gap, but he also hasn't done anything to reverse them and actively exacerbates all of them. He does arbitrarily impose sanctions and withdraw from longstanding treaties and agreements over little more than his own whims.
The same words spoken by Mike Pence would have carried more weight coming from the Obama administration because while our problems aren't new, they at least did something about it.
Mike Pence is a man who once walked out of a football game because a football player kneeled in protest of police killing unarmed black men.