Daily Times

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen begins a full day of meetings in Beijing including with Premier Li Qiang on Friday, as Washington seeks to steady the tense relationship between the world’s top two economies.

Yellen’s four-day trip is her first to China as Treasury chief, and she is the second high-ranking US official to visit the country after Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month. Washington and Beijing have traded barbs over a host of issues including export controls, human rights and national security. And China has stepped up its response to US curbs on its access to chips and, ahead of Yellen’s trip, unveiled new export controls on metals key to semiconductor manufacturing. But Beijing has struck an optimistic tone about Yellen’s visit, with China’s finance ministry saying Friday it would serve to “strengthen communication and exchange between the two countries”. “The nature of China-US economic and trade relations is mutually beneficial and win-win, and there is no winner in a trade war or ‘decoupling and breaking chains’,” an official said in a statement. And in a tweet after arriving in Beijing on Thursday, Yellen said that although the United States would protect its national security when needed, “this trip presents an opportunity to communicate and avoid miscommunication or misunderstanding”.

The United States does not expect specific policy breakthroughs over the next few days, but hopes for frank and productive conversations that can pave the way for future talks, a Treasury official told reporters. But, they said, “especially if they’re things that we may disagree about, it’s even more important that we’re talking.”