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US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen arrived in Beijing on Thursday, kicking off a visit aimed at improving communication and stabilising the tense relationship between the world’s two largest economies.
Yellen’s trip through Sunday is her first to China as treasury secretary, and comes just weeks after Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid a rare visit to the country.
She arrived in Beijing just after 5:00 pm (0900 GMT), and was greeted on the tarmac by US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, as well as Chinese finance ministry official Yang Yingming.
The visit will see Yellen seek to expand lines of correspondence, avoid miscommunications and widen collaboration on the global economy, climate change, debt distress and other issues, according to a Treasury official.
Her trip — which comes in the face of concerns over China’s economic recovery and US interest rate hikes — may also give officials on both sides a chance to speak about their countries’ growth outlooks.
On Friday, Yellen is scheduled to meet with Premier Li Qiang at the Great Hall of the People, speak with former vice premier Liu He, and attend a dinner hosted by former Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan, a senior Treasury official told reporters on Thursday.
With Liu, her former counterpart, Yellen is expected to exchange views about the status of the two sides’ economies, as well as the global outlook, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Analysts are also watching closely for a potential meeting with Liu’s successor as vice premier, He Lifeng.
“The fact that she’s spending four days in Beijing, given all of her other domestic and international pressures, underscores the importance she is attaching to this visit,” Asia Society Policy Institute vice-president Wendy Cutler told AFP.
And while each side will have a long list of complaints to raise with the other with little flexibility to adjust their policies, the visit could allow Yellen to lay the groundwork for future collaboration, Cutler added.
– Reframing relations –
Yellen’s trip continues an effort by the United States to reframe US-China ties diplomatically and in other areas, said Lindsay Gorman, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
“It’s about managing the new realm of strategic competition,” she said, noting that Yellen has pointed to competition only so far as it implicates security and values such as human rights.
With technology export controls and competitive measures “dominating the economic policy agenda now, I think there’s a real role to explain and communicate what the purpose of these measures really is”, she said.
Underscoring the challenges Yellen will face, The Wall Street Journal reported that the US administration is mulling restricting Chinese companies’ access to US cloud-computing services provided by companies such as Amazon and Microsoft.
Ahead of the trip, Beijing appears to have adopted reciprocal actions such as new export controls on metals key to semiconductor manufacturing, further proof that a shift in relations could take time.
But Yellen may be best positioned to build bridges with China on shared global challenges, Gorman said.
There are areas, such as debt distress, where cooperation appears more likely.
The United States has welcomed progress in the case of Zambia — whose creditors including China agreed to restructure its public debt — along with similar steps in Sri Lanka.
Washington has been pushing bilateral creditors for quicker debt treatments, while previously accusing China of delays.
Looking ahead, President Joe Biden has voiced confidence that he will meet China’s top leader Xi Jinping again soon.
– ‘De-risking’ –
However, tensions remain over a host of economic issues, including possible plans by Biden’s administration to restrict certain outbound investments involving sensitive technology that could impact China.
Washington also has concerns over Beijing’s “coercive actions and non-market economic practices”, and plans to push for corrective actions, an official said.
Although top American officials have stressed that Washington is not looking to decouple from China — and instead is pushing to “de-risk” — it remains unclear if Beijing will be convinced of a shift in US policy.
Other issues to be discussed could include recent amendments to China’s anti-espionage law, which broadened the definition of spying and banned the transfer of information relating to national security.
Yellen will meet on Friday with US businesses operating in China, for whom the amendments have brought fresh uncertainties.
These have added to existing concerns such as intellectual property protection and China’s subsidies, which Washington says has distorted trade in certain industries.
During the meeting with businesses, hosted by AmCham China, Yellen is due to hear about the opportunities and challenges firms face operating in China, a senior Treasury official said.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)
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