US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen came in Beijing on Thursday to start a four-day tour which has to be focused on strengthening friendship between the world’s two biggest economies, although both sides have low expectations for the result. While Beijing wants more dialogue to polish economic ties, it has accepted that both nations have placed safeguarding their own national safety above economic ties.
Chinese analysts have reported to state media that Dr Yellen’s April speech, which ranked saving the national security needs of the United States and its allies as the top plank of America’s economic policy with China, did not create positivity for the visit. Mr Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University, told the Global Times newspaper that Dr Yellen’s focus on national safety meant the US was unlikely to hinder the “economic and technological suppression” of China. Dr Yellen, who came at Beijing’s Capital Airport aboard a US government aircraft, will focus on the requirement to work with Beijing on climate change, pandemic preparedness and debt tension, a senior US Treasury official said earlier.
She will also tell her Chinese counterparts that Washington is not willing to decouple the two economies, while saving the right to protect human rights and US national security requirements through targeted work, the official added. Even though no huge breakthroughs are going to happen, US officials say Dr Yellen will push to invent new lines of communication and coordination on economic matters, and stress the results of supplying lethal aid to Russia, an assertion China has strongly denied.