Last month, Mr Pompeo stepped up US rhetoric against China’s ruling Communist Party, saying Beijing was focused on international domination and needed to be confronted, prompting China to describe his remarks as a “vicious attack”. China has been consistently irritated by Mr Pompeo, whether over his remarks on China’s Belt and Road infrastructure project or allegations of Chinese rights abuses in the far western region of Xinjiang, and in many other areas.
Speaking at a daily news briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Pompeo’s attacks on China’s political system and calling China a threat were “full of ideological prejudice” which China strongly opposed.
He said: “Pompeo is splitting apart and setting in antagonism against each other the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party in an attempt to provoke their relationship,”
The party has always represented and safeguarded the interests of the Chinese people and has won their deep trust and loyal support, he insisted.
He added: “Attempts to separate the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party is a provocation against the entire Chinese people and is doomed to fail.
“It must be pointed out that Pompeo’s comments are extremely dangerous and seriously inconsistent with his position as US Secretary of State.
“They fully expose his sinister intentions of fishing for political capital by being anti-China.”
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Speaking last month, Mr Pompeo said: “When the state rules absolutely, it demands its citizens worship government, not God.
“That’s why China has put more than one million Uighur Muslims in internment camps and is why it throws Christian pastors in jail.”
Mike Pence echoed his sentiments later in October.
The US Vice President said: “In Xinjiang, the Communist Party has imprisoned more than a million Chinese Muslims, including Uighurs, in internment camps, where they endure around-the-clock brainwashing.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Mr Pence’s speech was full of lies and prejudice, and that it had made China “strongly indignant”.
She added: “A handful of politicians with Pence at their head have confused black with white on these issues, making irresponsible remarks and creating rumours to slander others.”
Referring to the United States, she said: “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 morality and trust have long since disappeared.”