Washington, Jan 15
Marco Rubio began his confirmation hearing for the job of US secretary of state Wednesday with a sharp denunciation of China’s rise as a power by lying and cheating, and a robust defence of President-elect Donald Trump’s world view anchored in America First priorities, arguing it does not amount to isolationism.

“We welcomed the Chinese Communist Party into the global order, and they took advantage of all of its benefits, and they ignored all of its obligations and responsibilities,” Rubio said to his former colleagues of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of which had been a long-serving member as senator before Trump named him to head the state department as secretary of state.

“Instead, they have repressed and lied and cheated and hacked and stolen their way into global superpower status, and they have done so at our expense and at the expense of the people of their own country.”

Rubio is a leading anti-China hawk and if confirmed, he will join a group of Trump officials who are equally critical of China — such as Mike Waltz, the incoming national security adviser, and Pete Hegseth, the nominee for secretary of defence who told a committee of senators on Tuesday that deterring Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific will be a priority for him.

Rubio is an old and experienced hand at foreign policy as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has held strong views on China and Russia, both of which have been called America’s main adversaries by both Republican and Democratic administrations.

The nominee also took the opportunity of his opening remarks to address concerns raised in some quarters that President-elect Trump’s insistence on American interests above all amounts to, or will lead to, the United States isolating itself on the global stage.

“Ultimately, under President Trump, the top priority of the United States Department of State will be the United States the direction he has given for the conduct of our foreign policy is clear, every dollar we spend, every programme we fund, every policy we pursue, must be justified by the answer to one of three questions, does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger, or does it make America more prosperous?”

“Under President Trump, the dollars of hard-working American taxpayers will always be spent wisely and our power will always be yielded prudently and towards what is best for America and Americans before anything and everything else. Prudence in the conduct of foreign policy is not an abandonment of our values. It is common sense, understanding that while we remain the wealthiest and the most powerful nation on the Earth, our wealth has never been unlimited and our power has never been infinite, and placing our core national interest above all else is not isolationism. It is the common sense realisation that our foreign that a foreign policy, centred in our national interest, is not some outdated relic. Since the emergence of the modern nation-state over two centuries ago, countries acting based on what they perceive to be their core national interest have been the norm, not the exception.”

Marco Rubio accuses China of lying, cheating its way to global power