“I hate to interrupt,” she interjected as star witness and former US national security adviser Lieutenant General HR McMaster spoke. Most of her words were drowned out by McMaster’s remarks, but phrases like “we need cooperation, not competition” made it through to the prime-time audience.

Seconds after law enforcement ushered her out of the room, a man stood up holding a “Stop Asian hate” sign.

“This committee is about sabre-rattling,” the protester declared. “It’s not about peace. We need cooperation.”

They signalled a “curriculum of self-loathing”, he stated, reinforcing “the idea that America is the problem in the world and only if America disengages, or in this case, becomes more passive, things will get better”.

The woman was later identified as Olivia DiNucci, an organiser with Code Pink, a women-led anti-war group that made its name advocating against the Iraq war. The man was identified by Code Pink as Hector M, a Washington DC resident and friend of DiNucci.

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While Code Pink stands out for its confrontational methods, the group joins a small but growing list of actors publicly calling for increased dialogue between the US and China to reduce the risk of bilateral conflict.

Among their ranks is the Quincy Institute, a think tank founded in 2019 to “expose the dangerous consequences of an overly militarised American foreign policy”. Others include a group of senior American business and policy leaders convened last year by CV Starr & Co CEO Maurice Greenberg, as well as a “China and global business” platform launched last week by media company Semafor.

“The dynamic now that’s going on between both sides is very corrosive, and is really jeopardising the chance for continued stability and peace in Asia,” said Michael Swaine, a senior fellow at Quincy who spent almost two decades researching US-China relations at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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These newer efforts to improve dialogue build on the long-standing work of organisations like the National Committee on US-China Relations, founded in 1966 to promote bilateral cooperation and understanding, which have seen their voices crowded out in recent years.

But what Code Pink really highlights is that frustration with the status quo – and recognition of the high cost of conflict – is going beyond seasoned China watchers to groups that have not previously focused on China.

And that there are those not afraid to be very loud about it.

The protesters got a final acknowledgement 90 minutes into the hearing, when committee member Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said they had earned his respect despite his disagreement with their message.

“It takes guts to come into the halls of power with a dissenting view,” Khanna said.

“When we listen to dissent – when we listen to people who question the very existence of the committee – we show, by example, exactly what makes the United States of America different than the Chinese Communist Party,” he added.

It is not uncommon for protesters to disturb congressional hearings, though they risk not only ridicule but breaking local law. Both protesters were arrested, according to Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans. DiNucci must appear before the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on March 23.

Evans, who co-founded the organisation in 2002, is an anti-war activist who worked on political campaigns for former California Governor Jerry Brown, a noted environmentalist, and former South Dakota Senator George McGovern, a fierce opponent of the Vietnam war.

Evans started the China campaign about three years ago when she saw media coverage of the country increasingly frame it as an enemy, reminding her of narratives surrounding the Iraq War. She recalls thinking, “why is this happening? This smells, feels, tastes like war”.

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“Somebody is proud of their culture, and you’re going to beat them up?” Evans remarked.

“It’s not about China, it’s about war,” she said.

The campaign, with staff and backers around the US, is ramping up hiring to “meet the madness” and combat the “manufactured common sense” in the halls of Congress, Evans said. Along with disrupting hearings, it conducts congressional advocacy, hosts educational sessions and builds community-based coalitions.

“Bipartisan consensus is why this country is in such bad shape,” Evans said. “We don’t need consensus. We need to fight. We need to understand the issues.”

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Weiss, who sits on the board for Semafor’s new initiative, described the phenomenon as emanating from a “self-fulfilling escalatory spiral”: politicians speak harshly on China to avoid appearing weak to voters who demand a strong stance because of fear fuelled by the harsh rhetoric.

Framing a problem in terms of countering or competing with China discourages careful assessment of “the shape of the challenge and the costs and benefits of different policy responses,” she said. It also leads the other side to presume hostile intent, which can feed into miscalculation and deadlock, she added.

Weiss believed the costs of this rhetoric were not only potential, as in the case of conflict over Taiwan, but had already happened, such as tariffs that hurt American businesses and a loss of incoming talent from places like China.

Indirectly responding to McMaster’s portrayal of the protesters, she cautioned against a framework in which “anybody who wants to engage in the … rational, measured debate over China’s intentions and US policy responses is likely to be smeared or marginalised as somebody who is sympathetic to the [Chinese Communist Party].”

Code Pink, for its part, appears to be unafraid of misrepresentation by others.

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Evans has repeated narratives often advanced by Beijing, including that China has succeeded in lifting millions out of poverty. She has hosted events with academics and organisations, including the Chinese diaspora media group Qiao Collective, who cast doubt on allegations of genocide in Xinjiang.

She has also granted interviews to Chinese state media, who were the first media to reach out to Code Pink after the hearing.

Asked how she would respond to people who claim she is a Chinese government apologist, Evans called herself “a peace activist” not driven by fear and said “the [US] government is an apologist for so much violation”.

Swaine is unpersuaded by arguments that blame one side for the state of the US-China relationship, saying that they miss the “interactive dynamic of worst-casing and escalation”. He also cautioned against thinking that generic calls for peace could lead to concrete solutions, but noted the potential parallel between the miscalculation that triggered the Iraq war of 2003 and the current situation with China.

“If the notion that [China has given up on peaceful reunification with Taiwan] takes hold within the US government, just as the Iraqi nuclear weapons belief did, then you have a situation that becomes very dangerous”, he said. Swaine voiced particular concern about who might come into power after the Biden administration.

Meanwhile, protests like Code Pink’s could open up more room for dissenting views and broaden the policy landscape.

“The words ‘China is not our enemy’ [got] printed in The New York Times and The Washington Post,” Evans said. “That was a victory.”