CNN Newsroom: Interview With Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL)

Interview

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Yes. And it's, you know, unfortunately it stems from two problems. One is process and one is substantive. In terms of process, the Chinese Communist Party has rebuffed nearly a dozen attempts by the Pentagon to have high-level dialogue and talks and communication between us and them to avoid miscalculation. And that only causes the likelihood of more near misses.

And then the second is more substantive and that is the Chinese Communist Party believes that it has sovereignty over not just the Taiwan Strait but the entire South China Sea. And not only does that go against international law but the nations of the neighborhood, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, of course Australia, the U.S., Japan and others completely disagree and more than half of the world's shipping goes through that area.

And so freedom of navigation is incredibly important and we're going to continue to do what it takes to ensure freedom of navigation.

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I agree. I think that for some reason the CCP believes that not having dialogue and having this very dangerous behavior on the part of its vessels and its aircraft will somehow discourage us from exercising, and as well as our friends and partners from exercising our freedom of navigation in that part of the world. But actually, in my humble opinion, it does the opposite.

It causes others to view the CCP as bullying its neighbors, throwing its elbow, so to speak, at its neighbors, and as a consequence it's only going to escalate tensions and potential conflict. I think that they should come to the table, meet with folks like Secretary Austin and others, and talk about how do we lower the temperature, lower tensions and lower the possibility of conflict.

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There absolutely has to be more communication. There has to be more than just a handshake between Secretary Austin and his counterpart. There has to be a dialogue and kind of an explanation of what are our positions and how do we avoid miscalculation. I -- in my humble opinion, I think the CCP needs to understand that any potential conflict will yield unimaginable consequences. Not just for the nations in the neighborhood but for the CCP itself. It's in its own best interest to resume dialogue right now.

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Well, I -- far be it for me to give the president advice on this particular topic but I just have a couple of observations. One is we have to do everything we can to safeguard our interests, our rights, and to deter aggression on the part of anybody in the Indo-Pacific region because we cannot have a cold war or a hot war or any kind of open hostilities.

The second point is we have to figure out a way to engage, engage peacefully but with guardrails to make sure that, you know, our relationship is a win-win going forward, whether it's economically or otherwise. And we can find constructive ways to engage with the People's Republic of China in dealing with a whole host of other issues. We just got to have that dialogue, meaningful dialogue, to establish what those areas are and how do we work together.

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Oh, absolutely.

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Yes. I think that the Biden administration is doing what is needed to deter aggression against Taiwan. Remember, there's something called the Taiwan Relations Act, which obligates us to help provide articles of defense for the Taiwanese people to defend themselves from the CCP. All that being said we still believe in the One China policy and we believe in the status quo, Jim.

We don't want the status quo to change. And that is an essential message that I believe the Biden administration and indeed members of Congress are trying to communicate to the CCP.

We believe it's them that are -- they are the ones who are trying to upset or change the status quo by, for instance, claiming the Taiwan Strait or the South China Seas as their as their territorial waters when, again, it contradicts international law and understandings and other treaties.

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Thank you, Jim.

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