The top Democrat on a key US House committee argued for closer Sino-American cooperation amid strategic competition, the latest in a series of rare public instances of a lawmaker calling for a more measured approach to the bilateral relationship.
“We should be a little bit more sophisticated, a little bit more nuanced, a little bit more negotiation-oriented than the rhetoric” on Capitol Hill, said US congressman Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat and the ranking member on the House permanent select committee on intelligence.
Himes spoke on Friday at an event presenting the first-phase findings of a joint project by the Washington think tanks Brookings Institution and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies on “advancing collaboration in an era of strategic competition”.
Launched last year, the initiative seeks to “diagnose barriers now impinging on collaborative efforts” and “develop a playbook of best practices” to improve collaboration across different areas.
Himes highlighted some areas typically advanced by those advocating cooperation: fighting climate change, combating fentanyl and preventing pandemics and enhancing global health.
But he also said the US and China could collaborate on trade and producing artificial intelligence research as well as welcome more mainland scientists to American research institutions.
“This small-wall garden has been bigger than it would be for my comfort,” said Himes, alluding to the Joe Biden administration’s “small yard, high fence” approach that aims to put targeted restrictions on technologies with sensitive national-security implications while maintaining normal economic exchange in other areas.
Noting a concern over the reassertion of “ideology” over “pragmatism”, he rejected accusations that he was being too “dovish” on China.
Himes suggested that Washington could push Beijing harder on an agreement to not violate US critical infrastructure, noting a recent Chinese telecoms hack, and better protect supply chains of “ingredients of essential commercial and national security” like certain critical minerals.
Himes, a former Goldman Sachs employee who sits on the House financial services committee, has increasingly made his views on moderating Washington’s approach to China known in the past year, joining a handful of other influential Democratic members of Congress.
They include Adam Smith, the Washington state Democrat who is the ranking member of the House armed services committee, and Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen, a member of the powerful Senate appropriations and foreign relations committees.
While the Biden administration has consistently maintained that the US should cooperate ‘where interests align’ with China, such messaging scarcely emanates from Capitol Hill.
In an op-ed he penned in July 2023, Himes argued that “how to work with China on areas of deep common interest even as we challenge its dangerous and destabilising behaviour” was the “strategic problem of our generation”.
In the same piece and other public engagements, the Peru-born Harvard graduate stressed the interdependence of the American and Chinese economies, drawing a contrast with the US-Soviet relationship. Economic decoupling, he said, would cause massive unemployment and inflation.
Hines has also highlighted the dangers of America’s thinking on Iraq, advocated for expanding cultural exchange and proposed commending, not denigrating, China’s diplomatic efforts in the Middle East.
On Friday, he called China’s economic growth “nothing short of miraculous” for the Chinese people – a view he acknowledged as “an unpopular thing to say”.
Pollsters have noted that most Americans – 81 per cent, according to the Pew Research Centre – have a negative view of China, which some activists and lawmakers have cited to justify a harder line on China.
But Himes on Friday said “proactively, China never comes in, ever” in conversations with constituents.
Earlier this year, Himes was one of just 65 lawmakers who voted against a House bill to force China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok, a popular short-video sharing app. The legislation passed overwhelmingly.
Despite having “more insight than most into the online threats posed by our adversaries” as the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Himes said he believed in trusting Americans to “be worthy of our democracy”.
Himes also voted against several bills during the House’s “China Week”, an effort to advance legislation countering China’s economic, political and technological influence.
In a report last year, Christopher Chivvis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, another Washington-based think tank, said “moderates” in Congress exist but are always on the “back foot”.
Owing to a “surge of political pressure to demonstrate toughness”, moderates often worked behind the scenes to scale back “aggressive” legislation targeting China, rather than taking public stances, Chivvis explained.
Experts at the Brookings-CSIS event on Friday discussed case studies in great-power collaboration, including between the US and Soviet Union on smallpox eradication as well as opportunities in working with China on climate-smart agriculture.
“Collaboration on smallpox was not an altruistic endeavour by either superpower,” said Lily McElwee of CSIS. “It was firmly rooted in the national self-interest of each superpower.”
Similar initiatives are happening elsewhere. In October, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published a volume outlining cooperative pathways towards a “peaceful coexistence” with China.
Divisions between and within the Democratic and Republican parties on how to approach issues linked to China have surfaced with greater frequency in recent months.
This is the case even as both parties agree at a high level that norms of bilateral engagement since China’s ascension to the World Trade Organization must shift.
House and Senate lawmakers are in a fierce debate over whether and how to add restrictions on outbound US investment to China to the annual must-pass defence authorisation bill, the final major legislative push before president-elect Donald Trump takes office.
Trump has nominated several China hawks to top administration posts, including US senator Marco Rubio of Florida and US congressman Mike Waltz, also of Florida.
Rubio is slated to be US secretary of state, pending Senate confirmation, and Waltz is set to be the national security adviser, a role that does not require Senate confirmation. Come January 20, Trump will govern with Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress.
