Pompeo Warns of China's 'Surveillance State' at 'Genocide Olympics'

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at 

 Post's annual conference on October 12, 2021 in Jerusalem, Israel.

 ( Amir Levy/Getty Images)

Olympians should not be afraid to speak their mind, but former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warns them about the Chinese Communist Party's "surveillance state" during what he is calling the "Genocide Olympics."

"We are now having an Olympics held in a country that is currently holding 1 million or more people in camps that look kind of like what was happening in Germany in the 1930s, where they're forcing women to be sterilized and taking them away from their families," Pompeo told "The Cats Roundtable" on WABC 770 AM-N.Y. "That's where we are going to send our athletes — to the surveillance state, that's conducting genocide. I've talked about this as being the 'Genocide Olympics.'

Pompeo laments permitting China to host the Winter Olympic Games in February, saying it is "rewarding" Chinese President Xi Jinping.

"Who knows how the Chinese will respond if one of our young people – or a young person from another country – decides to say what they really think about the Chinese Communist Party?" Pompeo told host John Catsimatidis. "They've held people in detention for much less.

"The surveillance state, which will catch every word that every one of our athletes speak while they're on the ground there – everything they do – I pray that the surveillance state will not decide that they want to take an American and not let them return home when these games are over."

Pompeo said athletes should speak their mind, but "while they're inside China, they need to be very careful."

Pompeo echoed a warning of about Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was made by  former Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell on Newsmax, saying Putin might try to use the Olympics to move on Ukraine as he did with Crimea in the weeks around the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

"In the end, [Putin] will achieve the things that he very much wants, which is to exert political control over the entire region around him, and ultimately expand it into further regions of the west and western Europe as well," Pompeo said.

Pompeo also said it will take "a handful of years" to catch up on hypersonic missile capabilities of Russia and China.

"The Chinese and Russians, they're not in a position yet where they can put us at true risk, but we have to make sure that we are doing the right thing in establishing a model that can both defend the United States from nuclear attack and deter others from conducting such an attack."