From export restrictions to US President Biden’s comparison of China’s head of state Xi to a dictator, relations between China and the US are extremely strained right now. In this situation, US Treasury Secretary Yellen travels to Beijing.
Observers see the fact that Janet Yellen is coming to China as a positive signal – both from the Chinese and from the US side. The US Treasury Secretary’s visit comes despite US President Joe Biden comparing China’s leader Xi Jinping to a dictator and new trade restrictions.
In Beijing, Janet Yellen may be perceived as a US government official who is not overly confrontational.
China-US cooperation
The fact that the US Secretary of the Treasury repeated her statement in Paris in June that the world’s two largest economies could and must work together on global issues certainly contributed to this.
Earlier this year, the US Treasury Secretary said the world’s two largest economies have a responsibility to “work together on global issues.” According to Yellen, this aspect is something that can be done and that the world expects of them.
Janet Yellen wants to hold talks in China for four days. Following US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing in June, this is another attempt to stabilize the extremely bad relations between the two superpowers.
Strained relationship
The list of issues is long: Chinese human rights abuses, China’s friendship with Russia, the communist government’s threats to Taiwan, and US restrictions on microchips. The Washington government is trying to prevent China from getting high-performance semiconductors. One concern: China could use these for its military.
Therefore, certain microchips and machines that can produce them can no longer be exported to China. The communist state and party leadership is angry and only a few days ago introduced export controls on two materials that are crucial for the world’s high-tech production. Starting next month, special licenses will be required to export gallium and germanium from China, the world’s largest producer of these metals.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Tuesday that the export controls for the two commodities were not discriminatory and were not aimed at any particular country.
Countermeasures in response to US restrictions
But observers clearly see the export controls as a countermeasure to US restrictions. In the Communist Party’s propaganda paper China Daily, former Chinese Deputy Minister of Commerce Wei Jianguo called the measures a well-thought-out first hard blow.
If restrictions on China’s high-tech sector continued, countermeasures would escalate.