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As Gov. Chris Christie continues to fend off accusations of corruption in New Jersey, another Republican with possible designs on the White House, Marco Rubio, spent last week 7,000 miles away from the controversy, burnishing his foreign policy resume with a three-country trip through Asia.
The Florida senator made a busy, weeklong visit to the Philippines, Japan and South Korea -- a trip that brought him face to face with top officials from all three countries, the boxer Manny Pacquiao and a pair of DMZ-stationed North Korean soldiers, who took pictures of the man who one day may sit in the White House.
The ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, Rubio was making his first jaunt to Asia, a region he called the next big flash point in global affairs.
"All of the emerging major issues of the 21st century over the next 50 years are going to be in Asia, given the population growth, and given the instability that you see in North Korea, given the rise of China," Rubio told CNN in a weekend phone interview from Seoul, South Korea.
The three countries he visited "want us here," Rubio said. "And not just engaged militarily, but they want us engaged economically, culturally. They are comfortable with us. They've built these longstanding alliances that they want to build on and improve."
Rubio affirmed the importance of America's economic and military interests in Asia and expressed support for the so-called "rebalance" -- the Obama administration's effort to re-engage with Asia by forging deeper alliances with friendly nations and pursuing a stable relationship with China.
"In fairness, I think they're doing a lot of the things we need to be doing," he said.
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