Marco Rubio emulates Hillary Clinton on China
HRC said human rights shouldn’t get in the way of more important matters. Rubio now says the same. She got flak. Will he?
Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined the Trump Administration’s approach to China in a recent interview. It sounded veeerry familiar. We’ve heard this before. From Hillary Clinton.
Here is what Secretary Clinton said in February 2009:
"Successive administrations and Chinese governments have been poised back and forth on [human rights] issues, and we have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis.”
And here is what Secretary Rubio said in April 2025:
“And in that world with that many problems, especially big ones like China, the United States has to make a mature decision about how to prioritize the use of our national power. There are some issues in the world that matter more than others from our national interest perspective. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about some terrible humanitarian crisis somewhere on the planet, but we can’t put that ahead of some critical long-term challenge to the national interest of the United States.”
“I think China is the number one challenge on every front that I can imagine – geopolitically, national security, economically, industrially.”
“One final point I would make is we are entering an era in which our foreign policy has to be more focused, more pragmatic, and more balanced, and that is that we have to clearly define what is our national interest, remember what the issue is, and then we have to pursue that. And that means balancing things that in the past weren’t balanced. In the past it was democracy promotion at any cost or human rights promotion at any cost. We’re not abandoning democracy, we’re not abandoning human rights; we’re just saying that has to be part of the overall analysis when we decide where to spend our time and what to spend our money on.”
In sum, here is what both Clinton and Rubio say: we won’t ignore human rights, but there are more important/pressing issues we will give our attention to. Clinton says human rights “can’t interfere with” the other issues she lists. Rubio says “some issues … matter more than others from our national interest perspective.” He lists U.S. interests with regard to China and excludes human rights. Rubio then explicitly says human rights will be de-prioritized in policymaking.
Clinton took a lot of crap for that comment. I know, because I was one of those criticizing her. At the time I worked for the International Campaign for Tibet, which was among a coalition of groups that wrote a letter to Clinton asking her to prioritize human rights in her first trip to China. Another signatory group, Human Rights Watch, swiftly issued a response saying Clinton’s remarks “send the wrong message to the Chinese government.” Amnesty International said it was “shocked and extremely disappointed by [her] comments.”
Republican Members of Congress also slammed Clinton; one called her remarks “a shocking display of pandering.”
What about Rubio? I haven’t seen any coverage of his April 22 remarks on China, much less criticism of them. Not from any of the groups or Members of Congress that were critical of Secretary Clinton. (I have missed something somewhere; if so, please share in the comments.)
What could explain this difference?
The attention environment is galactically different. In 2009, Clinton’s China trip was the main human rights story. Today, human rights watchers are swamped covering the Trump Administration’s myriad human rights violations, including renditioning U.S. citizens and residents to foreign prisons, and dismantling human rights-promoting institutions (see below);
Rubio doing things like defending Germany’s neo-Nazi party, which draw attention from important but nuanced policy points buried in his interviews;
The double standard in which Hillary Clinton is categorically faulted for actions that men in similar positions are given a pass for (most recently demonstrated by Republicans excusing Pete Hesgeth for using insecure communications (Signalgate) that created exponentially more opsec vulnerabilities than the thing (“but her emails”) that they said disqualified Clinton). This is also called:
Sexism.
Back in 2009, Anne Applebaum made a very good point in a piece entitled “Just Words: Who cares what Hillary Clinton says to China’s leaders about human rights?” She wrote, “I do, however, care quite a lot about what the new administration is going to do about human rights on the ground, and, to date, both Clinton and Obama have been utterly silent on that score.”
On this point, we do know what Secretary Rubio and the Trump Administration have done on China human rights. It’s a lot. And it’s all bad:
Terminated USAID and cancelled programs that helped Tibetans refugees who fled Chinese repression and aided Uyghurs to combat China’s forced labor crimes;
Reorganized the State Department to institutionally demote human rights by shrinking the bureau that promotes human rights in China and eliminating the office that handles crimes against humanity and genocide;
Moved to close the National Endowment for Democracy, which funds programs to assist Chinese democrats, Uyghurs and Tibetans, and promotes democratic governance and resilience against expansion of PRC-favored authoritarianism;
Effectively terminated Radio Free Asia, which broadcasts independent information into closed societies in Asia, including services in the Tibetan, Uyghur, Mandarin and Cantonese languages; and
De-funded grants to China human rights NGOs, who as small organizations or as projects within larger organizations monitor and analyze the human rights situation inside China and provide a resource to U.S. policymakers and advocacy to promote human rights and the rule of law in China.
To be fair, the media has covered the Trump Administration’s “gifts to the CCP” (of which there are many more than listed here). Human Rights Watch issued a report critical of the Rubio’s plan shelve human rights in foreign policy-making, although many groups remain silent. Members of Congress have criticized cuts to China human rights NGOs.
But not Republicans. Not the ones who spoke out against Clinton. Not those who have portrayed themselves as “tough on China,” as Rubio himself once did. Not those who used to support NED and RFA in the “competition” with China. Not those who pose for photos with Tibetans and Uyghurs – the same ones who now do nothing to save the Rubio-deleted programs Tibetans and Uyghurs rely on.
The main reason that there isn’t a chorus of objections against Rubio’s Clintoneque turn on China (and the bad things listed above) is fear of retribution from an Administration very eager to punish its critics. This is a tragic irony. China human rights NGOs have played a vital role in speaking out for those in China who are afraid to speak up for fear of retribution from the Chinese government. Now, these same groups are afraid to speak out inside the United States due to fear of retribution from the U.S. government.
And Marco Rubio is a central player in this tragedy.
Rubio used the work of NGOs to build his brand as a champion for human rights in China. In return, Rubio is throwing these NGOs under the bus to stay in Trump’s favor. It appears Rubio was studying CCP methods not to counter them but to emulate them.
If you genuinely believe promotion of human rights should be a core part of the U.S. approach to China, you criticized Clinton, as I did, and criticize Rubio, as I do. But if you slammed Clinton but stay silent on Rubio, then consider how that looks. The cause of human rights in China — or of human rights anywhere — is best served if we gird it in principle rather than situational politics.