EXCLUSIVE: Senator Seeks to Expose CCP’s Authoritarian Ambitions

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) speaks during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies hearing on Capitol Hill in Wash., on May 17, 2022. Anna Rose Layden/Pool/Getty Images

The Chinese Communist Party has for years been bent on cementing its influence over the developing world.

One U.S. senator is hoping to counter this through an awareness-raising initiative.

In a Twitter campaign dubbed “#ExposingTheCCP,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) plans to spotlight the regime’s “sinister relationships” with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, as well as parts of the Middle East, where Beijing has made extensive investments to expand its political and economic clout.

Focusing on one country at a time, the weekly installments will feature those that have “struck a bad deal with China,” to “expose the CCP’s intentions in the Global South and ensure that Beijing no longer controls the narrative,” according to Rubio’s office.

“Now is not the time to be silent,” the senator told The Epoch Times in an email.

“We need to be vocal about what the Chinese Communist Party is doing,” he said. “Beijing is attempting to overpower, exploit, and hold hostage sovereign nations. The United States must stand up against Xi Jinping’s authoritarian vision and hold the CCP accountable.”

With the CCP strategically making social media its megaphone to attack the West and spread disinformation, the campaign aims to counter such efforts, according to Rubio’s office. It will also “fill a void” in the U.S. government communications, which currently lack a coordinated way to alert countries of the “many pitfalls” attached to Chinese investments, a spokesperson for Rubio’s office said.

The first “#ExposingTheCCP” tweet, shared with The Epoch Times ahead of its launch on Aug. 11, focuses on the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific which has recently signed a security pact with Beijing that has sparked widespread concerns that it could pave the way for the establishment of a Chinese military base.

New documents recently obtained by local media show that a Chinese state firm is looking to buy a deep water port and a World War II-era airstrip in the island nation.

China's ambassador to the Solomon Islands Li Ming (R), and Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare are cutting a ribbon during the opening ceremony of a China-funded national stadium complex in Honiara on April 22, 2022. Mavis Podokolo/AFP via Getty Images

While the country’s Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has repeated his assurances that there would be no Chinese military base, he was recently noticeably absent from a key memorial service event organized by the United States, a move that some local media have described as a “snub.”

The Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi saw a red carpet welcome after landing in Solomon Islands capital Honiara in late May, during his tour to advance the security deal, under which the Chinese troops are now training the Pacific nation’s police.

Rubio warned that the developments in the Solomon Islands are playing right into the regime’s hands.

“The Solomon Islands should call off the deal & put a stop to #Beijing’s plan to establish dominance in the Indo-Pacific,” the senator said in the Aug. 11 tweet.

The campaign will also highlight the impact of Beijing’s trillion-dollar infrastructure investment program, the Belt and Road Initiative, which critics say saddle developing nations with unsustainable debt burdens. Other tactics that the regime employs, the senator’s office said, include technology transfers and media exchange programs.