The United States and China agreed to have “intensive exchanges on balanced growth.” “These exchanges will facilitate a discussion on macroeconomic imbalances, and I intend to use this opportunity to advocate for a level playing field for American workers and businesses,” Yellen said in a separate statement.
The United States and China agreed to have “intensive discussions on balanced growth,” according to a statement from the US Treasury Department released Saturday following two days of talks between Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and his Chinese counterpart He Lifeng in Canton (also called Guangzhou). These upcoming exchanges represent a new attempt to stabilize tense relations between the world’s two largest economies since the meeting between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping last November.
“These exchanges will facilitate a discussion on macroeconomic imbalances, and I intend to use this opportunity to advocate for a level playing field for American workers and businesses,” Yellen said in a separate statement. Ms. Yellen’s visit, her second to China in a year, comes as Washington and Beijing disagree on a number of subjects, such as access to cutting-edge technologies, the future of Taiwan or the video application TikTok.
“Significant consequences”
The US Treasury Secretary also warned on Saturday Chinese companies that would provide aid to Russia and its defense industry in the war in Ukraine. Ms. Yellen stressed that “companies, especially Chinese ones, must not provide material support to Russia’s war against Ukraine, to the Russian defense industry” and threatened with “significant consequences” those who do so, according to a press release.
Janet Yellen arrived in China on Thursday for four days, with a first stop in Guangzhou (south), then was due to go to Beijing on Saturday. On Friday, the American Secretary of the Treasury affirmed that the subsidies paid by Beijing to the industry represented “a risk for global economic resilience”, by creating “overcapacity” of production.