Pompeo wraps up tour of Asia in Vietnam

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, second from left, and Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh (right) attend a meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, Friday (Oct 30, 2020). Pompeo is wrapping up a tour of Asia in Vietnam as the fierce American presidential election race enters its final stretch. - AP

HANOI, Oct 10 (AP): US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is wrapping up his tour of Asia in Vietnam as the fierce American presidential election race enters its final stretch.

With just four days left in the campaign in which China has been a central theme, Pompeo was visiting Hanoi on Friday ostensibly to celebrate 25 years of US-Vietnam relations. But as he has at his previous stops in India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Indonesia, Pompeo is expected to highlight the Trump administration’s antipathy toward China, its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, its human rights record and aggressiveness towards its smaller neighbors.