Former Vice President Mike Pence plans to counter his one-time boss and former President Trump’s recent remarks praising Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a speech on Wednesday, according to an advance excerpt of his address obtained by Politico.
“In recent years, China has only grown bolder in repressing religious liberty, trampling human rights, committing trade abuses, threatening Taiwan and launching aggressive military maneuvers in the South China Sea,” Pence is reportedly set to say during his remarks at the Nixon National Energy Conference on Wednesday.
“Under Biden, Chinese influence is even spreading on American soil,” the excerpt continues. “China may not yet be an Evil Empire, but under President Xi, it certainly aspires to become one.”
In a recent interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, Trump described Xi as “top of the line” and a “brilliant man.”
“Some people say Xi is a ‘brilliant man.’ I happen to think he’s an evil man, whose vision for the world is one in which freedom is constrained, but Beijing’s power is not,” Pence is set to say at the event. “Appeasement has never worked a single time in human history, and it will not work now.”
“America and her allies cannot allow either China or Russia to trample the liberty of our friends — we must ensure that our leaders send an unambiguous message that such aggression will never be tolerated,” the excerpt adds.
The former vice president, who is weighing a 2024 White House bid, has recently taken several swipes at Trump without specifically naming his old boss.
At the Republican National Committee’s spring donor retreat in Nashville, Tenn., on Friday, Pence suggested the GOP must “resist the politics of personality and the lure of populism unmoored to timeless conservative values,” in a clear reference to Trump.