Citing "competition of values", Pompeo lays into Russia, China

Russia slays political opponents and China's tactics would be "horrifyingly familiar" to former East Germans, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday, describing free nations as being in a "competition of values" with unfree nations. In a speech in Berlin on the lessons of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Pompeo said: "the West - all of us - lost our way in the afterglow of that proud moment."

"We thought could divert our resources away from alliances, and our militaries. We were wrong," he said. "Today, Russia – led by a former KGB officer once stationed in Dresden ‒ invades its neighbors and slays political opponents," he said. "In China, the Chinese Communist Party is shaping a new vision of authoritarianism."

"Let's stand together in unity," he concluded. "Let's stand together as allies."