Pompeo's China threat claims tick closer to their expiry date: China Daily editorial

In his last foreign trip before the US presidential election, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo apparently pinned great hopes on his Asian hosts helping liven things up at the last moment.

It seems that no grave calamity has ever befallen any country without it being foretold by some seer, and Pompeo has put himself forward as the presager of coming disaster.

Yet the studied and reserved responses he garnered during his visits to India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Indonesia and Vietnam might make the top US diplomat realize that not everyone divines the future the same way he does.

The main takeaway from the trip is not how ready countries, including India, are to side with the US to confront China, but how unwilling they are to make a choice between the two.

The Indo-Pacific anti-China coalition the US administration has been trying so hard for so long to hatch is nothing but wishful thinking on its part.

The cold shoulders Pompeo has met on his Asian tour have shown his anti-China soothsaying to be nothing but a self-directed and self-performed farce, as Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, described his trip.

That is perhaps why in Vietnam — which seems to have been an impromptu addition to his itinerary — Pompeo held his tongue, accepting after his previous stops that it is almost impossible to press Asian countries to jump on the US' anti-China bandwagon, as none of them is likely to sacrifice their independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity — if not the status quo — for foreign countries, as the US visitor was informed.

All countries in the region have benefited tremendously from their trade and cooperation with China without sacrificing their autonomy, and from the regional stability that the US administration seems willing to jeopardize.

The main reason that the region can become a global growth engine now, and continue to be so in the foreseeable future is its cohesion and shared belief in peace, stability and development, which are completely incompatible with the Cold War ideology of the US hawks. And the US administration has no ability or resources to entice countries to accept its follow-me promises.

Countries in the region are well aware that it is impossible to suspend their trade, cooperation and people-to-people exchanges with China, and that if they joined the US anti-China campaign, once the US starts to mend its ties with China, they might be left high and dry, paying for their shortsightedness with real money.

Countries in the region, including China, welcome the US playing a constructive role in regional affairs. But if it continues to try and sow discord in the region, it is liable to find it counterproductive.