Rep. Dusty Johnson: China relations pose vexing questions

Ag leaders tell congressman that China is a valued trade partner

South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson and Dakota State University President Jose Marie Griffiths participated in a roundtable discussion on U.S. relations with China on May 1, 2023. (Jonathan Ellis/The Dakota Scout)

If there was an overriding theme Monday about how the United States should deal with China, it was proceed with caution.

Rep. Dusty Johnson hosted a half-dozen members of the state’s business and academic community to discuss China and its growing influence on the world stage at a roundtable in Sioux Falls. Johnson, a member of the bipartisan House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, described relations with the Asian power as “walking a tightrope.”

On one hand, China has emerged in the last couple of decades as a key trading partner, particularly in agriculture. On the other hand, it has acted malevolently as it seeks to establish dominance as a world power.

“I believe we have given China too much coercive power over the global economy,” Johnson said. He accused the country of trying to subvert a rules-based trading system that evolved following World War II, and he said the “status quo is untenable.”

NEWS: Rural water system alleges billing, metering fiasco in lawsuit