2023-07-08 04:35:45
The US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, defended yesterday in Beijing “healthy competition” with China and recalled that it was “virtually impossible” to disassociate both economies, despite trade tensions between the two leading world powers.
“We want healthy economic competition, not pecking order, with an equitable set of rules, which can benefit both countries,” Yellen said in Beijing, during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on the first of his four-day visit to the Chinese capital.
Yellen and Li did not announce new plans for more high-level meetings to revive contacts that disputes over technology, security and other vexing issues have disrupted. Yet Yellen is the latest of several top US officials who have traveled to Beijing to encourage Chinese leaders to revive interactions between the governments of the world’s two largest economies.
Li said his country saw “a rainbow” when Yellen arrived at the airport on Thursday, the American’s first trip to China since taking office in 2021.
“I think this can be applied to the US-China relationship as well: after experiencing a windy and rainy season, surely we can see a rainbow,” he said.
Yellen’s visit comes at a time when some politicians in her country are calling to reduce the Asian giant’s dependence on Washington.
But the Secretary of the Treasury recalled that “a disengagement of the two largest economies in the world would be destabilizing for the world economy” and asked that “disagreements” not deteriorate mutual relations.
“I have made it clear that the United States does not seek a complete separation of our economies. We seek to diversify, not decouple”.
“One can disagree, he added, but we must not allow any disagreement to lead to misunderstandings that unnecessarily worsen our bilateral economic and financial relations.”
In recent years, disputes between Beijing and Washington have spanned numerous issues, from controls to exports to human rights or national security.
“Meaningful conversation.” Yellen’s visit is part of the United States’ attempt to stabilize relations and improve communications between the two powers. “Yellen seems like a more realistic member of the Biden administration,” said Tao Wenzhao of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
In an optimistic statement, China’s Finance Ministry said the visit would serve “to strengthen communication and exchanges between the two countries.”
“The nature of economic and trade relations between China and the United States is mutually beneficial. There are no winners in a trade war or in ‘decoupling and breaking supply chains,’” he said.
Yellen kicked off her agenda with a “significant conversation” with her former counterpart, former Vice Premier Liu He, and a meeting with China’s outgoing central bank governor Yi Gang, a Treasury official said. “They discussed the global economic outlook, as well as the respective economic outlook of the United States and China,” he said.
The same source had warned on Thursday that Washington did not expect concrete progress in the coming days, but was confident of holding productive talks for future exchanges.
“This trip presents an opportunity to communicate and avoid misunderstandings,” Yellen said in a tweet after her arrival in Beijing.
New restrictions. But it will not be an easy task to convince the Chinese authorities that the US measures seek to safeguard national security and not hinder the development of the great Asian economy.
Semiconductors represent the main point of friction between the two countries, with the imposition in recent months of restrictions to cut off the supply of US technologies to Chinese companies, such as chips.
China has been escalating its response to this restriction and, ahead of Yellen’s trip, unveiled new export controls on key metals for semiconductor production.
“I am concerned about the new export controls recently announced by China. We are evaluating the impact of these measures,” Yellen told the heads of US companies with a presence in China.
Some analysts believe the move was aimed more at other countries that have also recently limited chip exports to China at the request of the United States.
Showing the challenges that Yellen’s trip entails, the economic daily The Wall Street Journal reported that the Joe Biden administration is considering limiting Chinese companies’ access to cloud computing services from Amazon or Microsoft.
Yellen’s trip comes a few weeks after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing. Months earlier, Blinken had canceled his planned trip due to the controversy generated by the detection and destruction of an alleged Chinese spy balloon flying over the United States.
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