Mike Pompeo Photo: AFP

Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who was sanctioned by China when he left office at the end of the Trump presidency, plans to make a visit to the island of Taiwan for a second time, according to Taiwan media. The Global Times has found that similar to his previous visit to the island, Pompeo is going to make a profit from this visit no matter what instability his provocative visit may bring to the island's people.  

Pompeo is scheduled to arrive on September 26 and attend the Global Taiwan Business Forum to be held in Kaohsiung on the next day, Taiwan media reported.  

The Global Times learned that he will allegedly take "commission fees" from companies, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), China Steel Corporation, I-MEI Foods Co Ltd and CHIMEI Corporation. As for  the visit to the island of Taiwan in March, Pompeo was paid $150,000 for a speech, under the terms of an agreement signed by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US and US-based company Premiere Speakers Bureau, which organizes guest speakers for events, according to Taiwan media report.

Analysts point out that Pompeo and some politicians in the US have made "visiting" the island of Taiwan a business and they pay no attention to the people in the island. They merely care how much they can profit in terms of both political gains and money they can make. 

Seeking more profits 

In March, Pompeo visited the island of Taiwan accompanied by his former policy adviser Yu Maochun, known as Miles Yu in the US, who is extremely anti-China. Analysts called the visit a "political farce."

By reviewing related information, the Global Times found that the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US paid the fees for flights and accommodation for Pompeo and his four companions in the visit, including his wife and Miles Yu. The Prospect Foundation managed the event and the fees were finally paid by the island's external affairs authority. 

The Chinese-language newspaper United Daily News reported in March that Pompeo was using his four-day visit to Taiwan to lobby for government investment in Anarock Global Investment from pension, labor and national development funds. 

Pompeo encouraged the DPP authorities of the island to cooperate with companies related to him in order to make profits in an indirect way. The US company Anarock that Pompeo worked for contacted the DPP on Pompeo's visit to the island. In July 2021, Pompeo, together with Anarock chief investment officer Gino Ramadi, met with Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan island's representative to the US, to promote building an "investment partnership" between Anarock and the DPP.

On July 19, Ramadi and the economic team from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US held a video conference and claimed that Pompeo intended to visit the island a few months later and hoped progress could have been made in the "cooperation and investment" before the visit. Pompeo asked the DPP authorities to invest pension, labor and national development funds in Anarock projects whose related revenues could be used as Pompeo's campaign fund. 

When Pompeo made a speech at Texas A&M University in April 2019, he publicly said when he was the CIA director, "we lied, we cheated, we stole." Such remarks reflect his despicable behavior, analysts said. 

For example, during his visit to the island of Taiwan in March, Pompeo ignored anti-epidemic measures and allowed his assistant Miles Yu to meet privately with Vincent Chao, former director of the political division at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US, causing a loophole in the anti-epidemic work. 

Money diplomacy

While US politicians are seeking every opportunity to profit from the island of Taiwan, DPP authorities in the island are cooperating with them to spend huge amounts of money to pocket the political gains, playing "cash-for-friendship" tactics and seeking "Taiwan independence" on the global stage, analysts said. 

They noted that with the excuse of making budgets for technical cooperation, education, training or investment and financing, the DPP authorities lobby politicians, lawmakers and scholars from certain countries and regions, attempting to make "diplomatic breakthroughs." 

By reviewing media reports, the Global Times has found that in 2022, the overall "diplomatic budget" of the island reached $936 million, which includes $41 million "classified budget" to bribe and support anti-China forces and their activities overseas. This financial support appeared to have helped some political figures visit the island, but they all came with business and political purposes. 

When former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Mike Mullen visited the island in March, he asked the island to purchase a second remote warning radar from the US. And when US Senator Ed Markey, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations East Asia, Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Subcommittee, visited the island in August, he asked the island to purchase Boeing aircraft from the US. 

The DPP authorities spent the hard-earned money of residents of the island, which is typical "money diplomacy" and "cash-for-friendship diplomacy," but such moves cannot buy security, but will only hurt the interests of residents and make it a laughing stock, said analysts. 

Many scholars and residents in the island of Taiwan lashed out at leaders of the DPP authorities as "unworthy descendants" as they have sacrificed local residents' fortunes to feed greedy US politicians to seek "independence" while residents have gained nothing but more worry about the worsening situation in the Taiwan Straits.