- US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met Chinese Premier Li Qiang, former Vice Premier Liu He and China’s central bank governor Yi Gang in Beijing.
- Yellen said Washington seeks “healthy economic competition” with China.
- At the same time, she emphasized that both countries must take “targeted measures under certain circumstances” to protect their security.
From trade restrictions to the spy balloon affair, relations between the US and China are very strained. In June, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Beijing, now Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Legend:
Yellen met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang for talks.
Keystone/EPA/Mark Schiefelbein / POOL
Their message in their luggage: The USA wants to work together with China on global challenges. In addition, the four-day visit should also serve to make more use of the communication channels between the two states.
Differences of opinion must not lead to misunderstandings.
Janet Yellen said clearly: “Disagreements must not lead to misunderstandings that unnecessarily worsen our bilateral economic and financial relations”.
Because relations between the two world powers are already at an all-time low. The relationship is strained by US President Joe Biden’s tough course on China, the ongoing trade war, China’s backing for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war of aggression against Ukraine, China’s territorial claims in the South and East China Seas and Beijing’s threats to the democratic island republic Taiwan.
The decoupling of the world’s two largest economies would destabilize the global economy.
“The US is not aiming for a total separation of our economies. We are aiming for diversification and not decoupling,” Yellen told her Chinese interlocutors. “Decoupling the world’s two largest economies would destabilize the global economy and would be virtually impossible to accomplish.”
Just this week, China decided to restrict the export of metals needed in the manufacture of electronic components. However, since last autumn, trade barriers in the same area have also been in effect from the USA.