Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R) joined Fox Business News' "Mornings with Maria" to discuss the threat that China poses amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an issue that the Florida lawmaker has long commented on, and it has even resulted in him being sanctioned by China.
In the interview, Rubio, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, discussed the risks that Chinese state-owned enterprises pose on the national security of the United States, clarifying that “Microsoft has worked for the Department of Defense, but we don’t own Microsoft, we don’t own AT&T, we don’t own Google or Amazon.” However, “in the case of these [Chinese] companies, they are structured like independent, but no company in China is independent, none, they are all under control of the government.”
“Imagine, if you are one of these companies, just think a technology company, and you are now providing, like Huawei, service for broadband, rural service for 5G and so forth, that also happens to be strategically located near important American military installations, or you make these surveillance cameras that have been installed in military facilities, all of that creates opportunities for backdoors where China doesn’t have to send spies,” Rubio added.
Furthermore, Rubio commented on U.S. companies being opposed to efforts to limit U.S. investment into Chinese companies that pose a direct threat to U.S. national and economic security, saying that companies “are looking for a rate of return on their shares, they want value for their shareholders, they want good quarterly performance, and investing in companies that have almost exclusive access to the most populous nation on Earth is attractive to them, both in the short and midterm.”
