After 10 hours of meetings with Chinese officials in Beijing, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced at a press conference that the two countries would work to improve dialogue despite “significant differences.”
There was no major breakthrough to reduce tension between the two countries, but the mere dialogue raised hopes of reaching a consensus formula to stave off the danger of confrontation, says the newspaper. The New York Times.
Yellen’s visit to China came amid hopes that the United States could restart a relationship that has deteriorated for years over significant flashpoints — including the war in Ukraine, a Chinese spy balloon that was shot down by the US military, and escalating trade restrictions between the two countries.
After 10 hours of meetings over two days in Beijing, Yellen said at a press conference on Sunday that she believes the United States and China stand on a more firm foundation despite their “big differences.”
“We believe the world is big enough for both of our countries to thrive,” she added.
Both sides indicated that the talks were “constructive” and continued contacts
The minister announced that the two sides would continue to have more frequent contacts at the highest levels, describing the dialogue as a way to prevent mistrust from destroying the relationship, which she described as “one of the most important relationships of our time.”
Yellen’s trip came a few weeks after Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Beijing and met with senior Chinese officials.
According to the New York Times, the US special presidential envoy for climate change, John Kerry, will visit China soon to resume global warming negotiations.
Analysts considered that the desire for more dialogue is an important development, as “the two countries began to talk about their differences after months of silence,” says the New York Times.
The two governments gave positive evaluations of the two-day meetings and agreed to hold further talks, according to LWall Street Journal.
“My goal is to make sure we don’t engage in a series of unintended escalatory actions that will be detrimental to our overall economic relationship with each other,” Yellen said Sunday on CBS News.
Yellen’s chief Chinese interlocutor, Vice Premier He Lifeng, expressed concern about the US sanctions, but said the two sides “agreed to maintain exchanges and interactions,” according to an official statement.
He Weiwen, a former Chinese Ministry of Commerce official who is now a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing, welcomed Yelin’s comment that both China and the United States can prosper.
“China and the United States have deep differences, so continuous and direct exchanges are not only constructive, but also of crucial importance,” he told the New York Times.
Yellen participated in meetings on the sidelines of the talks, without a tangible breakthrough
However, a significant easing of economic tension may not be likely, according to the New York Times.
Yellen returned to Washington, Sunday, without any announcements of breakthroughs or agreements to mend the continuing divisions between the two countries.
The secretary said the Biden administration has serious concerns about many of China’s business practices, including its treatment of foreign companies, and policies that the United States views as efforts at economic coercion.
The Treasury secretary said she had discussed the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese imports, which remain in place, and while Yellen criticized the tariffs as ineffective, she indicated that the administration would not make a decision on the tariffs until an internal review of them is completed.
On her trip, the first by a US Treasury secretary in four years, Yellen met four of the most powerful Chinese leaders involved in economic policymaking under President Xi Jinping: Premier Li Qiang, Vice Premier He Living and Finance Minister Liu Kun, and the President of the People’s Bank of China, Pan Gongsheng.
Hours before Yellen’s press conference in China, the Xinhua news agency released a report on her visit that described the talks as constructive, but also emphasized what China views as key areas of disagreement.
The report expressed China’s continued objections to the Biden administration’s emphasis on preserving US national security through trade restrictions.
“China believes that the generalization of national security is not conducive to normal economic and trade exchanges,” Xinhua said. “The Chinese side has expressed concern about US sanctions and restrictive measures against China,” she added.
The Chinese and American economies represent 40 percent of the total global economic output, and they are partners in many ways, and they trade in a very large number of important commodities.
Yellen acknowledged, according to the newspaper, Chinese concerns about the looming US restrictions on investment in China, and said that she tried to explain that such measures would narrowly target certain sectors and would not have a broad impact on the Chinese economy.
Chinese officials and experts are also concerned that the administration’s efforts to limit China’s access to certain technology could dampen its development of high-potential industries such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
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2023-07-10 00:11:23
