US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s new cold war campaign against China is doomed to failure, as his “fanatical policies” received the cold shoulder during his recent tour of Europe, the China Daily argued today.

The Chinese communist newspaper accused him of continuing to throw “malign insults” at the country, using slanders and lies to try to garner support for Washington’s increasing hostility towards Beijing.

In a bizarre speech to Czech legislators last Wednesday that evoked cold war rhetoric, he ranted: “The CCP [Chinese Communist Party] is already enmeshed in our economies, in our politics, in our societies, in ways the Soviet Union never was.

“In your country alone, we see influence campaigns against your politicians and security forces, the theft of industrial data that you have created through your innovation and creativity and we’ve seen the use of economic leverage to stifle freedom itself.”

But his words failed to sway Czech Prime Minister Minister Andrej Babis, who refused to side with Mr Pompeo at a press conference.

Rejecting the former CIA chief’s anti-China rhetoric, Mr Babis insisted that the Czech Republic is “a sovereign country and I do not see any major threat here.”

Mr Pompeo’s trip also included a visit to Slovenia on Thursday, where he warned about the supposed Chinese threat to cyber-security and sought to promote high-speed wireless networks that exclude Huawei and other China-based firms.

But a China Daily editorial noted: “Tirelessly calling Huawei a threat, Pompeo provided no concrete evidence for his claim. On the contrary, as divulged by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks, it was the United States that has implemented a notorious global surveillance.”

He claimed to be using his trip for “the purposes of safeguarding freedom and democracy, and protecting allies from existential threats.”

But, the China Daily editorial said, the peace-loving people of eastern Europe are “not fooled by Pompeo and his ilk,” so efforts to provoke a new cold war are set to fail.