Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) answered concerns about his longstanding, vocal stance against the atrocities committed by communist China in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday where he appeared following his nomination to be secretary of state.
President-elect Donald Trump selected Rubio to serve as his top diplomat shortly after his election victory in November, calling him a “highly respected leader and a very powerful voice for freedom.” The topics senators addressed with Sen. Rubio in the hearing on Wednesday spanned entire continents, but America’s relationship with communist China and its various threatening activities — from espionage to intellectual property theft to its colonization of Africa — surfaced repeatedly as a top priority for the incoming State Department leadership.
During his time for questions, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) raised the Chinese government’s years-long acrimonious opposition to Sen. Rubio and his policies, which ultimately resulted in the country banning him from entry in 2020. Sen. Paul used his time to question the usefulness of sanctions generally, then express his hope that Sen. Rubio, as head of the State Department, would not antagonize China away from constructive engagement.
“People think of sanctions as a way to modulate behavior,” Sen. Paul said. “I think it rarely works and I think we pile more on … as punishment they kind of work, I don’t think they are deterring Russia’s behavior or changing it.”
The senator suggested that the “threat of a sanction” could be powerful, “like the threat of a tariff,” but “once placed, I think a sanction or tariff only has an effect on someone’s behavior if you remove it.”
Outside of the sanctions issue, in which Sen. Paul indicated he would support offering Russia sanctions relief in exchange for an end to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, he suggested more broadly that the State Department in recent memory had become too combative for his preferences.
“Instead of being the department of diplomacy, which I think it’s supposed to be, it becomes an extension of the department of war and muscle and we show how strong we are through the State Department,” Sen. Paul opined. “But really, when bellicose statements come from other parts of the government, I see the State Department as the one that shows up and still tries to have a conversation.”
“In the past, because of remarks, you have been banned from travel to China,” Sen. Paul recalled to Sen. Rubio. “My hope is that you will think about a different way of doing business other than just saying, ‘let’s sanction everybody and let’s call people names we don’t like’ because I don’t think it helps, I think it actually makes the situation worse.”
Sen. Paul asked Sen. Rubio to discuss “carrots” that he would potentially offer China to improve ties.
Sen. Paul was referring to sanctions Beijing imposed on Sen. Rubio in 2020, along with ten other prominent American political figures. Sen. Rubio and colleague Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who also attended the hearing on Wednesday, were the most prominent public servants on the list. The Chinese Foreign Ministry explained the sanctions at the time by stating officially that Sen. Rubio and the others had “behaved badly on Hong-Kong related-issues.”
In 2019, Hong Kong experienced a historic wave of anti-communist protests in response to an attempt by Beijing to illicitly impose communist law over the “One Country, Two Systems” policy in vigor at the time. Sens. Rubio and Cruz, as well as other officials in both parties, supported the protests. China ultimately crushed the protests by unofficially ending “One Country, Two Systems” and imposing a “national security” law that outlawed dissent in 2020.
“Last month #China banned me. Today they sanctioned me. I don’t want to be paranoid but I am starting to think they don’t like me,” Rubio joked in 2020, following a second wave of sanctions against him to punish his advocacy for victims of communism.
The secretary of state nominee addressed both the negative assessment of sanctions policy and the implication that he had been too critical of China during the hearing on Wednesday.
“They’ve said mean things about me, too, and I’m not sure that they’re fans of mine,” Sen. Rubio replied, referring to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“My role now as secretary of state is to lead the diplomatic wing of the country and that will involve engaging them,” he continued, promising a “mature and prudent” approach to conversations with China.
“Despite everything I’ve said, I have consistently throughout my career said that it is that geopolitical … developing imbalance [between China and America] that is the greatest risk to global security and prosperity,” Sen. Rubio added, “because that could quickly trigger not just trade and economic conflict but an armed one which would be catastrophic.”
“Yes, we are going to have to deal with China,” he affirmed, but added, “what cannot continue to happen is that China continues to assume all of the benefits of the international system and none of its obligations.”
On the issue of sanctions. Sen. Rubio described sanctions as one of the few peaceful alternatives “in the toolbox” of diplomacy to address malicious foreign behavior outside of military action. He cited onerous sanctions on Iran, the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism, as an example of successful sanctions, contrary to Sen. Paul’s skepticism about their use.
“Let there be no doubt, if the Iranian regime had more money because of no sanctions, they would have spent more money on Hezbollah and Hamas and their missile program and the Houthis and others,” he asserted, “so I do think there is value in that regard.”
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