Sen. Rick Scott joined Newsmax on Thursday to discuss his trip to East Asia, where he said U.S. allies in the region are preparing to defend the territorial integrity of Taiwan.
On ''The Record With Greta Van Susteren,'' the Florida Republican outlined that Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are all prepared ''to work really hard to make sure they can defend themselves'' if China invades Taiwan.
''The purpose of the trip was to meet with high-level political leaders, to meet with our military over there, to meet with business leaders, and do everything we can to make sure we have the right relationships — economic relationships, military relationships, political relationships, so we can defend the freedom of Taiwan, of Japan and South Korea,'' he said.
Scott, the chief sponsor of the Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act, also stated that the United States needs to provide a more robust defense for Taiwan, declaring that ''we ought to get rid of the ambiguity.''
''I have a bill that would say we are going to defend Taiwan,'' the senator told Van Susteren. ''Taiwan's a democracy. They ought to be able to decide their own rule. They shouldn't be bullied by Communist China.''
''I also have a bill that says if China does invade Taiwan, here's exactly what we're going to do. No different than what we did with Russia,'' he added, referencing his Deterring Communist Chinese Aggression act proposed alongside Sen. John Neely Kennedy, R-La.
The tough posture from Scott comes as fears of an imminent Chinese invasion of Taiwan have only grown since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year.
Just last month, Chinese military official Col. Shi Yi said a fly-through of a U.S. maritime plane over the Taiwan Strait intentionally heated up the conflict and endangered the region's stability, Reuters reported.
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