The U.S. Treasury Secretary visited China again, but no one arrived, so he went first?
Less than 24 hours after Biden's call to China, China agreed to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's visit to China, followed by Blinken.
On April 3, the Ministry of Finance announced that China and the United States agreed that U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will visit China from April 4 to 9. Specifically, Yellen will arrive in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province on April 4 to meet with Chinese officials and representatives of the U.S. business community in China, fly from Guangzhou to Beijing on the afternoon of April 6 and meet with teachers and students of Peking University, and on the afternoon of April 8, Yellen will hold a press conference and deliver a speech on her visit to China, and leave Beijing to return to the United States on April 9. Compared with her visit to China in July last year, Yellen's trip has more than doubled the length of her trip.
First of all, Mrs. Yellen is not ordinary, she became the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in 2010, becoming the first female head of the Federal Reserve, in 2016, Yellen ranked eighth on the Bloomberg list of the world's 50 most influential people, and in 2021, she was elected the 78th secretary of the Treasury of the United States, thus becoming the first female Treasury secretary in U.S. history. In China, it is equivalent to being the governor of the central bank first and then the minister of finance, and eating up the top positions in the financial and financial fields.
Of course, no matter how good and famous Mrs. Yellen is, she is also a US official, and the primary purpose of her visit to China must be to strive for more interests for the United States, and even if it is possible to reach some consensus with the Chinese side, it is to maximize the interests of the United States.
In fact, as early as the end of March, Yellen made a lot of nonsense about the so-called "China's overcapacity threatens the global economy", complaining that China's industrial subsidy policy has a negative impact on the global economy, focusing on China's "new three": electric vehicles, batteries, and solar products, which distort global prices and production models, and hurt the interests of American companies and workers.
In the past year, US Treasury Secretary Yellen, Secretary of State Blinken, Secretary of Commerce Raimondo, and other core officials have visited China one after another, and the starting point is naturally good, but unfortunately, the US side has not implemented the consensus reached, but has shown its face of "saying one thing and doing another" to the fullest, on the one hand, it wants to strengthen communication and dialogue with China, and on the other hand, the Biden administration has suppressed China in all aspects in the fields of economy, trade, science and technology, and at the same time, it has repeatedly said that it does not support "Taiwan independence" As for the United States, we can't pay attention to what they say, we can only look at what they do.
Obviously, Yellen's visit to China this time must also be "a drunkard's intention is not to drink," so why did the old lady come? To put it simply, it can be summed up in four words, that is, "both want and want."
First, the old lady has worked hard to make a trip to China, and it is difficult to get around the topic of asking China to stop selling US bonds.
As the second largest overseas creditor of the United States, China holds the second largest balance of U.S. bonds after Japan, and according to the latest data, China increased its holdings of U.S. bonds in November and December 2023, but in January 2024, it reversed the trend of increasing its holdings of U.S. bonds for two consecutive months, selling 18.6 billion U.S. bonds, and it is likely to turn into a continuous sell-off, which makes the already optimistic U.S. economy worse again, and the issuance of U.S. bonds to finance the U.S. government is the responsibility of the Treasury Department and Yellen。
Second, the "new three" of electric vehicles, batteries and solar energy products, as a symbol of China's high-end manufacturing products exports, have obviously touched the cake of some people.
After all, the global market share is limited, and the original piece of the cake was completely controlled by the Western world, and now Chinese companies want to divide a piece, and it is the kind that is divided to death, the European Union has planned to impose punitive tariffs to inhibit the export of China's new energy vehicles to the European market to protect local car companies, as the boss of the Western world, it is necessary for the United States to come to China to negotiate, repeatedly pull, and strive to obtain the greatest benefits, and Yellen's second visit to China is one of the very important links.
Of course, it is not a bad thing for the United States to hope to maintain communication with China, and economic warfare also needs to be talked about while fighting, and the Chinese side has always been open to communication and contact, but the premise is that there is no bottom line, judging from Yellen's unbridled remarks about China before her departure and the practice of harboring a little ninety-nine behind her back, do not expect too much from this visit to China.
Having said that, "it is difficult for a good woman to cook without rice", it is not easy for the old lady to run far away, and the last time I went back I was scolded very miserably, this time I shook hands and remembered to straighten my waist.