Vice President Mike Pence recently delivered a lengthy speech devoted specifically to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It was the most comprehensive denunciation of the CCP by the United States in forty years, and it was deeply shocking. Pence reviewed the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, when the United States believed that China would inevitably become a free country. He said the United States had been overly optimistic and had underestimated Mao Zedong’s anti-American political legacy. Pence pointed out that over the past 17 years, China’s GDP has grown ninefold, largely benefiting from the United States.

Over the past forty years, the United States helped rebuild China. China became well fed, wealthy, and powerful, earned enough money, stole American technology, and then turned around—beating swords into plowshares in reverse—to confront the United States, attempting to push America out of the Western Pacific. It also exploited American freedoms to infiltrate the United States on a broad scale, openly placing advertisements and undermining the president. Compared with Russia’s interference in U.S. elections, this was on an entirely different level. Now the United States has awakened, and Pence’s speech represents a full-spectrum condemnation of the CCP.

Pence stated that the United States has long hoped China would respect liberal principles, private property, religious freedom, and human rights, but all these hopes have been disappointed. In recent years, the CCP has intensified surveillance and repression of its people, controlling every aspect of their lives. Over the past ten years, more than 150 Tibetans have self-immolated in protest against the suppression of religious belief. In Xinjiang, one million Uyghurs are now detained. Authorities have demolished crosses, burned Bibles, imprisoned believers, and continued religious persecution.

In the face of the CCP’s offensive, Pence said the United States will not retreat and will resolutely defend American security and economic interests. He expressed hope that China’s leaders would change course, return to the spirit of reform and opening up initiated by Deng Xiaoping forty years ago, and once again respect the United States and establish a fair and reciprocal relationship. Pence pointed out that although China’s current leadership still speaks of reform and opening up, in reality these concepts have been hollowed out.

In response to the U.S. condemnation, the CCP has tried by every means to block information and save face, preventing the public from knowing the truth. Official spokesperson Hua Chunying continued to repeat the familiar platitudes of “no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation.” The party-run Global Times weakly declared, “We will not engage in emotional disputes with the U.S. If the United States wants to define China in a certain way, let it do so.” Internally, the CCP appears disoriented and unsure how to respond. However, judging from its past behavior, it is unlikely to give up until it runs headlong into a wall.