Biden’s bid to mend China-US ties after months of build-up
ALBAWABA – United States (US) Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is slated to visit China, 6th through 9th of July, in a bid to mend China-US ties after recent bilateral tensions, news agencies reported Monday.
China’s Ministry of Finance confirmed the visit in a statement on Monday, as reported by Bloomberg.
Yellen will meet with senior Chinese officials and leading American firms, the US spokesperson said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The meetings are expected to tackle the importance for both countries "to responsibly manage our relationship, communicate directly about areas of concern, and work together to address global challenges," said the Treasury Department in a statement.
While the US seeks to protect its national security interests and safeguard human rights, actions to this effect are "not intended to gain economic advantage over China," a senior treasury official stated.
Prospects for China-US ties
The US does not expect "significant breakthrough" from this initial trip, but it does aim to build longer-term channels of communication with China, the official said.
America is looking to restore "healthy" ties with Beijing and does not seek to decouple the two economies, he underscored. Adding that the US intends on pursuing cooperation on urgent challenges like climate change and debt distress.
"I think the US government is clearly trying to put some floor under the deterioration of the economic relationship," Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) told AFP.
For months, treasury chief Yelled had said she intends to visit, according to Bloomberg. But an escalation in tensions between the US and China stood in the way.
Yellen is the second senior member of US President Joe Biden’s administration to visit China in recent weeks. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had just visited the Chinese capital on June 17.
During his visit, Blinken highlighted efforts by the Biden administration to reinstate lines of communication with counterparts in Beijing.
Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, told Bloomberg that Yellen cannot address contentious trade issues such as tariffs or sanctions. These issues are the purview of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
However, she is seen as a “rational voice” inside the Biden administration, Wu said.
“This is why we want to receive her as the first member of the US economic and trade team to visit China,” he added, on the sidelines of the World Peace Forum in Beijing.
She can “create room for easing bilateral economic and trade relations,” Wu confirmed.
Overview of China-US ties
Tensions between the two countries stemmed from then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip last year to Taiwan and escalated by the flight of a Chinese balloon over the US.
Notably, Beijing claims Taiwan as part of China.
Relations were put under further stress by the escalation of the trade war between the world’s two largest economies and the introduction of US controls on the exportation of advanced microchip technology to China. Relations furthermore soured on China’s response with a ban on the importation of some US microchips.
Both Yellen and other top US officials have repeatedly stressed that the US is not seeking to decouple from its geopolitical rival, China, but rather to de-risk a culminating situation.
Even so, in an April speech, Yellen warned that the US is prepared to accept economic costs in order to protect national-security interests from threats posed by China.
But Yellen’s new counterpart in Beijing is Vice Premier He Lifeng, a long-time confidant of President Xi, who is succeeding Liu He.
Liu, a fluent English-speaking veteran of the international stage who had studied at Harvard University, has had a relatively positive relationship with Yellen.
When the two met in January, in Zurich, their rapport was such that they at one point left their aides behind as they kept talking, Bloomberg reported.
