Marco Rubio warns that Chinese espionage presents a ‘big challenge’

Marco Rubio. Image via AP.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio continues to warn that Chinese spy operations present a “big challenge” to American geopolitical primacy.

The latest jeremiad from the Acting Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee came on Fox News Thursday night, when the second-term Republican warned that Beijing’s espionage operations are more sophisticated and dangerous than any the United States has faced before.

“And when you explain to people that the Chinese are the most holistic, whole of society threat this country has ever faced in terms of espionage — they will try to create relationships with a small town Mayor who they think may one day grow up to be a Governor or Senator, a member of Congress, they will cultivate business relationships,” Rubio told Laura Ingraham, before describing the grooming process.

“They use business people, they take them to China, they let them make some money, then they unleash them back in the U.S. and use them as lobbyists here in this country for their interests and against our national interest.”

As well, the Senator added, academia is laden with Chinese agents … who often “don’t consider themselves spies.”

“They’re here. They’re serving their country. Many are even linked to the military. They’re researchers. They steal secrets and take them back. And then you’ve got American researchers who have openly sold their research, and oftentimes leaving to China with it, other times just selling it to them. And in many cases, it wasn’t illegal or wasn’t prosecuted. This is a big, big challenge. We have a lot of work ahead of us,” Rubio told Ingraham.

For devoted students of Rubiology, Thursday’s comments are of a piece with concerns about the “watershed moment” in the Washington/Beijing power struggle.

Earlier this week, the Senator warned that the situation regarding Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell, targeted in a Chinese influence scheme, was just the “tip of the iceberg” relative to the Chinese communist grooming of unsuspecting American politicians on the left.

Expect action in 2021.

“The very first hearing of the Senate Intel Committee next congress must be on China’s efforts to spy on, influence & potentially coerce government officials in the U.S., including members of Congress,” the Senator tweeted Tuesday.

Rubio has expressed concerns about the incoming Joe Biden administration, describing Cabinet nominees as “polite & orderly caretakers of America’s decline.”

At least for a stretch of the Presidential campaign, Rubio messaged grave concerns that President-elect Biden would sell America out to the Communist Chinese.

“When Joe Biden was Vice President, and for years before that as a Senator, he was a full-throated supporter of this idea [to] let China deindustrialize America,” Rubio said in September. “As recently as earlier this year in the [primary] campaign, he was saying that China was not a threat, not a big deal.”

As the Biden administration crystallizes into a governing reality, expect Rubio to message hard on China as he prepares for a spirited 2022 challenge, in the General Election and, perhaps, in the primary before it.