2023-07-07 10:18:25
(Beijing) US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday in Beijing advocated “healthy competition” between China and the United States, despite trade tensions between the two leading world powers.
Posted at 6:18 a.m.
Beiyi SEOW Agence France-Presse
“We want healthy economic competition, not survival of the fittest, with a fair set of rules that can benefit both countries,” Yellen said during a meeting with Premier Li Qiang, who is specifically tasked in his country of economic issues.
The Treasury Secretary, who is making her first trip to China since taking office in 2021, also called for “disagreements” not to “deteriorate” relations between the two countries “unnecessarily”.
These statements come as some US politicians have been calling for months to reduce Washington’s dependence on the Asian giant, amid rising geopolitical tensions.
Ms Yellen urged caution on this point. “A decoupling of the two largest economies in the world would be destabilizing for the global economy,” she warned in front of American business leaders.
PHOTO PEDRO PARDO, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Janet Yellen
Chinese Premier Li Qiang, for his part, pointed to an improvement in relations between Beijing and Washington.
“Yesterday, when you got off the plane, we saw a rainbow” over Beijing, Li Qiang told his host. “I think that also applies to relations between China and the United States. […] we can see a rainbow”.
“Avoiding Mistakes”
This visit comes a few weeks following that of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in the Biden administration’s desire to renew physical contact with Beijing, following three years of almost total isolation from China due to the health crisis. .
“In the Biden administration, Ms. Yellen seems to be more pragmatic” than others, Tao Wenzhao, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told AFP.
“His visit is welcome, and from a practical point of view, it should allow the two parties to get closer,” he said.
“I think we are reshaping, rebuilding China-US relations,” Tao said.
In the morning, the American Secretary of the Treasury was already able to have a “real conversation” with her former counterpart, the former Deputy Prime Minister Liu He, as well as the outgoing governor of the Chinese central bank, Yi Gang, according to a Treasury official.
“They discussed the global economic outlook and that of the United States and China respectively,” the source added.
The Treasury official warned on Thursday that the United States did not expect specific advances during this visit but hoped for constructive exchanges that might pave the way for more concrete discussions.
“This trip is an opportunity to communicate and avoid miscommunications or misunderstandings,” argued Ms. Yellen on Thursday.
Investigations and searches
The main sticking point is in semiconductors, with the imposition in recent months of restrictions to cut off Chinese companies’ supply of American technology, including chips.
China, which seeks to become autonomous in this area, believes that these measures are aimed at hindering its development and maintaining American supremacy.
On Monday, Beijing announced restrictions on exports of two metals essential to semiconductors and of which it is the main producer. A measure widely perceived as retaliation for American pressure.
“I am concerned regarding the new export controls recently announced by China […] We are in the process of evaluating the impact of these measures, ”reacted Ms. Yellen on Friday to heads of American companies.
The latter are increasingly worried regarding the business climate in the country, following searches and investigations launched in recent months once morest some of them.
Paradoxically, since the lifting of health restrictions at the start of the year, many of the big American bosses have visited China, like the general manager of Apple Tim Cook or the founder of Microsoft Bill Gates.
The latter even had the supreme honor of being received by Chinese President Xi Jinping, as co-president of the Bill and Melinda Gates philanthropic foundation.
Elon Musk had met with senior leaders, before going to Shanghai to visit the assembly site of a gigantic factory inaugurated by Tesla in 2019.
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