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(Trends Wide) — US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to Beijing later this week as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to deepen communication with China after what has been a particularly tense and volatile time, announced the Treasury Department on Sunday night.
Yellen is the second cabinet member to travel to China in the past month. And while the visit will mark another high-level engagement between the two superpowers, there are no expectations of “significant progress.” The three-day talks are expected to be “constructive” and “frank,” according to a senior Treasury official, though Yellen is not scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to the official.
His trip comes after President Joe Biden compared China’s leader to “dictators” during a fundraiser last month. The comment threatened to destabilize ties just a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken said his trip had made “progress” in mending the fractured relationship between Washington and Beijing.
Yellen is expected to meet with senior Chinese officials as well as major US companies. It will address various “areas of concern” such as documented allegations of human rights abuses and ways to responsibly manage competition between the two powers, as well as areas where they could work together on global challenges such as change weather, the official said.
This trip will be the first face-to-face meeting between Yellen and her Chinese counterpart since a new economic team took over in Beijing, the official said, adding that it will give them a chance to make “serious connections.”
Along with other US officials, Yellen has long signaled the Biden administration’s desire to deepen communication and ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
In congressional testimony in April, Yellen stressed the importance of maintaining ties with China, saying “disengagement would be a big mistake,” while noting that human rights abuses and questionable trade policies needed to be “addressed.” In June, she told a group of top US executives that it is critical that the US work with China on specific and urgent global challenges.
As US officials increase the frequency of their contacts with their Chinese counterparts, Biden said he hopes to meet Xi soon.
“I look forward to meeting with Xi again in the coming months to discuss the legitimate differences we have, but also the areas where we can get along,” Biden told reporters in June.
