Update: Highlights from Pence’s speech (via Bloomberg):

• *PENCE SAYS TRUMP HAS MADE RELATIONSHIP WITH CHINA `A PRIORITY’
• *PENCE: CHINA USING WHOLE-OF-GOVT APPROACH TO INFLUENCE U.S.
• *PENCE: HOPE THAT FREEDOM IN CHINA WOULD EXPAND WENT UNFULFILLED
• *PENCE: CHINA USING STOLEN TECH TO TURN PLOWSHARES INTO SWORDS
• *PENCE: CHINA POLICY HAS USED CURRENCY MANIPULATION, IP THEFT
• *PENCE: CHINA USES `DEBT DIPLOMACY’ TO EXPAND ITS INFLUENCE
• *PENCE: CHINA EXTENDED LIFELINE TO `CORRUPT’ MADURO REGIME
• *PENCE SAYS CHINA IS MEDDLING IN AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
• *PENCE SAYS WHAT RUSSIANS DOING `PALES’ IN COMPARISON TO CHINA
• *PENCE: U.S. WILL ASSERT AMERICAN INTERESTS ACROSS INDO-PACIFIC
• *PENCE CALLS FOR GOOGLE TO END DRAGONFLY APP DEVELOPMENT

So that confirms it – China is the new enemy number 1. Xi is the new Putin!

*  *  *

The White House is about to ratchet up tensions possibly far beyond what they already are amidst the ongoing US trade war with China.

At 11 a.m. eastern time Vice President Mike Pence will deliver at address at the neoconservative Hudson Institute where he’s expected to call China out on a number of explosive issues around the globe where Beijing’s increasingly aggressive actions are seen as a threat to the US, but will especially focus on the Sunday incident involving the USS Decatur which was dangerously intercepted by a Chinese naval vessel in the South China Sea. 

The Chinese ship reportedly came within a mere 45 yards of the American warship in international waters; however, it’s but the latest in a string of such threatening incidents intended by Beijing to lay claim to vast swathes of the South China Sea on the basis of its man-made island chains.

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