House Select Committee Member Says Allies Want Trade, Aghast at Congress Dysfunction
Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., one of the less hawkish members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, bemoaned the fact that the original title of the committee, which talked about strategic competition, has been forgotten.
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Kim, who spoke to Foreign Policy magazine in a broadcast interview on Oct. 13, said that while there's a lot of attention to what China is doing, there's not as much thought about "what kind of strategic competition is this? How is the United States faring in this?"
Kim said that when he travels in Asia, he hears from government officials who say "they don’t want to be seen as just a square on a chessboard in great power competition."
"When I was out in Malaysia they were happy to talk to me about security … but they overwhelmingly wanted to talk to me about economic issues and trade and direct investment and other ways we can help," he said. "They even came to me and told me, 'all you want to do is talk about military deterrence … but you have to listen to what we need and what we want to talk about.'"
Kim said he does have some optimism that if Congress can get out of a position of always reacting to events, that policymakers will think about how to advance U.S. innovation, not just slow down China. He noted that also requires the House gets past its current dysfunction, as illustrated by ouster of the speaker and the difficulty Republicans have agreeing on who they want the next speaker to be.
"As this issue gets more and more prominence on Capitol Hill, I find my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are able to get deeper and more nuanced," he said. He wonders if the U.S. and China can get to a stable relationship again, or if there will be perpetual tension between the two countries for decades.
He thinks the U.S. should do more industrial policy, invest in the workforce, and should be "investing in fixing a broken immigration system which is preventing America from being a magnet for global talent."
Kim said other countries don't see America as a reliable partner at the moment because of policy whiplash across the last three residents of the White House.
"We need to realize this partisan divide we have, this isn’t just about domestic politics, [or] who’s going to have the upper hand in negotiations to avoid a government shutdown. The rest of the world is looking at us in shock … and then they’re moving on."