Marco Rubio

I think they have ambitions to ultimately be able to project power globally the way the U.S.

does now.

We think it would be a terrible mistake to force that through force or anything of that nature.

There would be repercussions for that globally, not just from the United States.

And we kind of leave it there.

That sort of ambiguity is what I think...

has defined the way we characterize this issue.

And the reason being strategic ambiguity is we don't want to see conflict.

We don't want to see something disruptive happen.

Do you view China as our top geopolitical foe?

Yeah, it's both our top political challenge geopolitically, and it's also the most important relationship for us to manage.

I mean, it's a big, powerful country.

It's going to continue to grow.

But we're going to have interests of ours that are going to be in conflict with interests of theirs.

And to avoid wars and maintain peace and stability in the world, we're going to have to manage those.

Look, there's three things.

The Chinese have ships stuck in the Persian Gulf because setting up a system that says we're going to let certain ships through but others not, it's easier said than done.

And you saw a Chinese, not Chinese flag vessel, but it was a Chinese cargo got hit over the weekend.

I'm sure Iran didn't do it deliberately, but they did it.

It happened.