Listen to SupChina editor-at-large and Sinica podcast host Kaiser Kuo read this article.
In June of 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to The Hague to celebrate ‘global entrepreneurship.’ At a summit co-hosted by the United States and the Netherlands, Pompeo looked relaxed and jovial in a lime green tie as he addressed the assembled business community. He extolled the virtues of free markets, lauded the audience for their innovation, and — in a line that received tepid applause — implored them to “make entrepreneurship great again.”
“In parts of this world, authoritarian states can steal ideas and they can prop up their own business and their own business enterprises,” Pompeo said, “but you should know that they will never in the end match the entrepreneurship and innovation found in free and open societies because their incentives are just all messed up.”
For those in the audience, it was clear that Pompeo was talking about the Chinese Commu
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