Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a speech to the Republican National Convention from Jerusalem this week, and it’s getting a lot of media attention. But another address this month has gone less noticed despite its significance.

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2)

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A couple weeks ago, Pompeo made a week long swing through Central Europe — a place where authoritarian regimes are sadly not in the far distant past. There would be important stops in Austria, Poland, and Slovenia, but first on the itinerary was the Czech Republic. Pompeo had been invited to speak to the parliament 30 years after Czech president Vaclav Havel’s historic address to the U.S. Congress in 1990.

The late Havel was a Czech poet, playwright, and dissident whose intellect and action helped to lead his people out from under the iron fist of communism. A key player during the non-violent “Velvet Revolution,” he became president of liberated Czechoslovakia in 1989 and then the first president of the new Czech Republic in 1993. He is a hero in his home country and a celebrated statesman around the free world.

Speaking to Congress as the Soviet empire was crumbling, Havel said, “We are living in very extraordinary times. The human face of the world is changing so rapidly that none of the familiar political speedometers are adequate.”

Three decades later, while welcoming the U.S. Secretary of State to the podium in Prague, the president of the Czech senate, Milos Vystrcil, said Pompeo’s address was “very symbolic because it… will take place in the time when the free spirit of Europe is being weakened.”

For his part, Pompeo marveled at the changes that had taken place since the Cold War. In fact, he noted he had been a soldier stationed not far from Prague: “Back then, it was nearly impossible to imagine that an American secretary of state would ever deliver an address in this exquisite city that was, at that time, held captive by communists, or that I’d be the one doing it. I was a young lieutenant. God has been good to us all.”

However, Pompeo warned that authoritarian threats were sadly not a thing of the past. “While we wrote the epitaph on those types of regimes, we now know that it was premature,” he said.

Pompeo pointed first to the well known troubles from a resurgent Russia. But he quickly turned to the “even greater threat” of communist China. He talked of its economic coercion, influence campaigns, and industrial data theft in the Czech Republic. He also pointed to the Chinese government’s oppression of its own people — not the least of which are the one million Uyghur Muslims and other minorities detained in Xinjiang.

The Czechs know well what one-party communist rule is like, and Pompeo declared that the Chinese Communist Party is “paranoid about free societies like ours.” He went on to say that the challenge of China is different than the old Soviet threat “because the CCP is already enmeshed in our economies, in our politics, in our societies in ways the Soviet Union never was.”

However, Pompeo did not want to leave his listeners hopeless. He suggested the die is not cast for China to dominate democratic societies. But it will take a concerted effort. He declared:

We have to explain what I think those of us who grew up in another time knew. We have to explain to our citizens the price free societies will pay if we don’t confront this threat. We have to explain what kind of scrutiny we must give to Chinese investment and why we do that. And we have to talk to them about what sorts of alliances are needed to be built between the United States and Europe and around the world, and how we will retool to withstand and resist this threat. Your nation, and others that suffered behind the Iron Curtain, know this. You know best how… deeply communists plunge societies into ruin and oppression. You all have seen it and you’ve heard it from the generations before you. Our countries must work together to awaken all. We must help them. We must help everyone.

Pompeo commended Czech leaders standing for liberty in the face of Chinese pressure, including Czech senate president Vystrcil, who will boldly travel to Taiwan on August 29. Concluding with an appeal to Havel’s emphasis on human rights, he reminded them that “today, tomorrow, and forever, America will be with you as we champion those precious human rights and freedoms.”

This call to advance liberty needs your prayers. Americans and our friends abroad need to remember history. We need to learn from the past. Our leaders need wisdom and direction from the Lord.

Aaron Mercer is a Contributing Writer with two decades of experience in Washington, D.C.’s public policy arena and Christian associations. A seasoned strategist, he aids organizations with research, analysis, and writing services, and he reflects on faith, technology, and the public square at FTPolicy.com. (Photo Credit: Flickr.)

Will you press into this in prayer? How is the Lord moving in your heart on this matter?