WASHINGTON, D.C. – In case you missed it, Senator Rick Scott spoke at the Hudson Institute last Friday on Communist China’s threat to the United States’ national security and economic stability, and how the international community must stand united against Communist China and fight for human rights.

Watch Senator Scott’s speech HERE. Read excerpts of his remarks as prepared for delivery below, or in full HERE.

“…We cannot continue to pretend that General Secretary Xi is a world leader intent on pursuing policies of freedom, economic cooperation and peace. He pursues policies that are good for the Chinese Communist Party. Period.

He is a despot in disguise. He’s Mao Zedong with a makeover.

Unfortunately, the last few decades of policies coming out of Washington have not solved the problem of Communist China. We’ve merely altered the battlefield.

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Our posture towards Communist China has simply strengthened a determined adversary, and one that views this conflict as a zero-sum game. They win, we lose.

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The result, whether we want to admit it or not, is a new Cold War. 

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Our commitment to peace, democracy and human rights around the globe MUST be paired with an equally global strategy to deal with the growing threat of Communist China.

What I’ve tried to focus on throughout my first year in the U.S. Senate is finding every opportunity possible to reveal Communist China’s true intentions and their fundamentally anti-democratic worldview.

Our goal must be to untangle some of the missteps our government has made to protect the citizens of the United States and the long-term security of our economy.

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We can no longer pretend that Communist China is an ally with good intentions – merely a partner with customs and a political system that we don’t fully understand.

We know what Communist China is. We know who they are. Communist China is a totalitarian regime bent on world domination – one that quashes dissent, often violently, and destroys anyone or anything that stands in its way.

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We stand with the freedom-loving people of Hong Kong and Taiwan, the historically persecuted people of Tibet, the peaceful community of Uyghur Muslims and Falun Gong, and the journalists and political dissidents in Communist China.

We stand for human rights and we stand against political neutrality in the face of evil.

The challenge posed by Communist China is great. We must face this challenge head-on.

It will be the conflict that determines whether the world community will embrace the values of democracy and human rights or cower to the whims of dictators.

I’ll fight every day to make sure we come down on the right side of history.”

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