(Script of Marco Rubio’s Senate Speech on 15January 2025.)
The central argument behind doing business with
China was we think capitalism will change them, okay, they’re gonna eat Big-macs
and drink Coca-Colas and they’re gonna literally ingest democracy and it will
transform them, okay!
They argued that capitalism was gonna change China,
now we stand here 23 years later and realise capitalism didn’t change China, China
changed capitalism! China did get rich, they most certainly got rich, but they didn’t
use that money to buy our products, they use that money to buy the products that
are made in China, and they didn’t become a democracy either.
Now what you have is what was once a poor Chinese Communist Party now you have a rich Chinese Communist Party that has tightened its grip on the country ans it’s actually going around the world trying to export their authoritarian model.