US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said the US is "not finished yet" when it comes to getting tough on China, with just over two months left in the Trump administration.
Pompeo used some of his strongest rhetoric to date to describe the Chinese government in a Tuesday speech to the Ronald Reagan Institute detailing the administration's China policies.
He called the Chinese Communist Party a "Marxist-Leninist monster" whose rule is "authoritarian, brutish and antithetical to human freedom."
In a separate briefing, Pompeo announced that Undersecretary of State Keith Krach would travel to Taiwan on Nov 20 to lead an economic dialogue. It would be Krach's second high-profile visit to the island in as several months, and the third by a US senior official under the Trump administration.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Zhu Fenglian told a briefing on Wednesday that Beijing was “firmly opposed” to Krach’s planned visit.
The remarks came a day after the US imposed sanctions on four more officials accused of undermining Hong Kong's autonomy, and signal that the Trump administration is ready to keep hitting out at China even after Joe Biden won the previous week's presidential election.
Quoting from previous President Ronald Reagan's remarks on the Soviet Union, Pompeo predicted the eventual exit of China from one-party rule.
"In the end the people of China, just like the people of the Soviet Union, will ultimately be determinative of the course of history of that country," he said.
Pompeo said his approach to China had been determined in part by his time as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency starting in 2017.
"As CIA director, I got the chance to see first hand what these characters were up to," he said of China's leaders.
'COMMON ENEMY'
The secretary of state's attacks on the Chinese Communist Party and its leaders have made him a favourite target of Beijing. China's foreign ministry has branded him "ignorant," while commentaries in state media have called him "evil" and a "common enemy of mankind."
Pompeo did not mention the outcome of the election or President Donald Trump's refusal to concede. He described US democracy as a "shining city on a hill" and said "the world needs us to live up to our providential promise."