WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing was necessary as it set a baseline for engagement with China, says Representative Andy Kim, a Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr Blinken met President Xi Jinping on Monday – the first meeting between a US secretary of state and the Chinese leader since 2018 – as well as China’s top diplomat Wang Yi. He also held talks with his counterpart, Foreign Minister Qin Gang, on Sunday.

Mr Kim told The Straits Times on Tuesday: “We just need to have a baseline level of engagement. And I’d rather Blinken have this kind of engagement with his counterparts in Beijing now and not only when some sort of crisis emerges.

“You need to make sure that the relationship is there, that they know each other, that they have an understanding of how to talk to each other. And you don’t want that conversation to happen only when things are at the most tense moments or during a crisis. So I hope that we can keep this up.”

The 40-year-old congressman from New Jersey also sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on the Indo-Pacific.

Mr Kim spoke to ST against a backdrop of scepticism of engagement with China from conservatives, not least from the Republican chair of the House Select Committee, Wisconsin Representative Mike Gallagher. Prior to Mr Blinken’s trip, Mr Gallagher warned in The Wall Street Journal that “the siren song of engagement invariably leads to appeasement in the face of foreign aggression”.

Congressman Gallagher is right, fellow Republican and Senator from Arkansas Tom Cotton tweeted on Tuesday. “Joe Biden’s return to a failed China policy will empower China and weaken the United States,” he said.

Congressman Kim told ST that he is concerned about the hawkishness on China in Congress.

“I understand the importance of having strong security, but… diplomacy and security deterrent are not mutually exclusive,” he said. “We have to come to an understanding that it’s not one or the other.”

Framing China as an “existential threat” or referring to US-China competition as a “new Cold War” in Congress was not helpful, he noted.

“Global security and stability will be dependent on how we manage the relationship between the US and China,” said Mr Kim.

“There’s a responsibility there, not just in terms of our own national interest as the United States, but also... our responsibility as a global leader to make sure that we are structuring that relationship as responsibly as possible.”

That means engagement; minimising risks, misunderstandings and miscommunications; and being clear about each other’s priorities, he said.

“There’s going to be a lot of competition, a lot of challenges up ahead, but… a responsible leader needs to… prevent this from ever turning into a conflict or ever getting to a place where the negatives are going to (create) such consequential challenges around the world,” said Mr Kim.

“You need to have that kind of engagement with your partners. You also need to have that kind of engagement with your competitors.”

US foreign policy was too reactionary on China, he said.

“When we engage with nations around the Indo-Pacific, for instance in South-east Asia, we have to show that we have... intrinsic interest in those nations in and of themselves.

“Right now, we don’t have that... A lot of nations in the Indo-Pacific think that the United States is engaging with them only because they’re concerned about their position vis-a-vis China,” he said.

“That’s not where we should be as a global leader.”