Former US diplomat says Pompeo's anti-China speech 'primitive and ineffective'

BEIJING - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's highly provocative China-smearing speech at the Presidential Library of Richard Nixon was "primitive and ineffective," a former US diplomat has said.

Pompeo's "angry lament" and "extended ideological rant" will achieve an opposite effect, Daniel Russel, former U.S. assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told CNBC on Friday.

The speech will only deepen anger at the United States, Russel said.

Speaking at the Presidential Library of Richard Nixon, the former US president who pressed the start button to normalize relations with China about five decades ago, Pompeo on Thursday urged an end to the long-held engagement approach towards China and called for "a new alliance" to force China to change according to Washington's wishes.

"Complaining is not fixing and denouncing is not diplomacy," Russel said, adding Pompeo's remarks could worsen bilateral relations.