Pompeo in the Senate

Small and midsize countries like the Czech Republic could lose their sovereignty and fall prey to new power-hungry empires unless they cleverly align themselves with international communities that guarantee their independence, wrote commentator Alexandr Mitrofanov two weeks ago. Ironically, his employer, Seznam.cz, signed a multifaceted partnership 10 days earlier with a leading representative of one of those power-hungry empires, Huawei of China. The U.S. government considers Huawei to be owned or controlled by the Chinese military and to be an intelligence-gathering apparatus for the Chinese state. Until Jan. 2016, Seznam was minority-owned by Julian Robertson's Tiger Holding Four, part of a leading U.S. hedge fund. If Mike Pompeo wants to use his speech in the Czech Senate on Wed. to warn against the growing influence of China in Central Europe, the case of Seznam could be the one that hits closest to home for him as U.S. secretary of state.