After arriving in Guangzhou, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen began an official visit to China. Yellen will inevitably come with a purpose in mind, which is determined by the current internal and external situation in the United States, which is also an important reason for her second visit to China in less than a year. In the face of the current economic pressure, especially the predicament of sluggish growth and a weak job market, the United States actually believes that China is the culprit, and has even said that China will not be allowed to sell low-priced goods, which seems to be bent on "de-globalization." However, this is also objectively conducive to forcing China to complete the final step of industrial upgrading.
Less than a year later, Yellen visited China again. According to CCTV News, on the afternoon of April 4, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen arrived in Guangzhou to begin a five-day visit to China, and she also became the first cabinet official to visit China twice during the Biden administration. During her trip over the next few days, Yellen will meet with Chinese officials to continue economic dialogues, especially the two working groups on economics and finance between China and the United States, which have successfully held three rounds of dialogue since last year. Of course, Yellen's visit to China is with four major purposes in mind, and she certainly does not want to return empty-handed.
The first major purpose is to "ask for help" from the Chinese side. The U.S. economy is now under great pressure, especially the huge debt that is piled up higher than the sky, which has now exceeded $34 trillion, which is $5 trillion more than the U.S. GDP. What's worse is that the total debt is still growing rapidly, and in 2020, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office predicted that the debt would not reach $34 trillion until 2029, but it was five years ahead of schedule, and now it will exceed $35 trillion in a few months. Coupled with the ongoing infighting between the Democratic and Republican parties, the debt snowball is getting bigger and bigger. Finally, the crisis of the banking storm has been suppressed, and the debt default rate of the commercial real estate industry has increased again. It can be seen that Yellen is still bending her waist for the sake of money.
The second major purpose is to hope that China will not take action and try to cooperate with the United States in this wave of harvesting Japan. On March 19, the Bank of Japan announced an interest rate hike, which is the end of the era of negative interest rates in Japan, and objectively there is also a figure of the United States behind it. However, the United States has made a somewhat unrealistic calculation, and neither India nor Southeast Asia is afraid of Japan's interest rate hikes, because the former itself has no international credibility at all, and the human factor in the financial system is very large, while the latter cooperates closely with China and has China's backing, as long as the pressure is not too great, it can completely get through.
The third purpose is to hope that China will buy some U.S. bonds, or at least stop selling them. Since last year, China has been constantly avoiding risks and strengthening its gold reserves, and in the face of the situation of higher and higher US bonds, China has reduced and sold US bonds, which is a wise move to safeguard its own financial security interests. And the United States just wants China to give some face, fool China into buying some US bonds, play an exemplary role in the international market, boost confidence, and then combine some political, diplomatic and military means to exert pressure, so that it can more easily get other countries to borrow money.
The fourth goal, of course, is to persuade China to abandon its "de-dollarization" or slow down its pace. Many developing countries, including China and Russia, are seeking to settle trade in their own currencies, such as oil, gas and other commodities, and many countries are abandoning the dollar. The financial hegemony of the United States is supported by the international status of the dollar, and seeing that the situation is becoming more and more unfavorable to itself, the United States can only say good things about China in the financial aspect, fantasizing that China can help itself.
Interestingly, the United States made it clear before Yellen's trip that the situation has changed and China is no longer allowed to sell low-priced goods. On April 3, the Wall Street Journal published an article before Yellen's departure, citing a number of strange China-related remarks made by Yellen, "If someone gives you cheap goods, you should send a thank you letter, but now I will never say 'send a thank you note'" in an attempt to continue to pour the dirty water of "hollowing out American manufacturing and jobs" on China.
This sentence clearly reflects the unbalanced psychology of the United States and its stance of engaging in "anti-globalization." This is the case in the United States, which has been engaged in trade protectionism under the slogan of "America First" since the Trump administration, and has been bent on raising tariffs and conducting "double anti-dumping" investigations, especially for Chinese companies. The competitiveness of China's products is, in the final analysis, a solid science and technology, excellent quality, and a complete industrial chain, not the so-called dumping of cheap goods; the United States, which has always believed in a liberal market economy, cannot compete with China in many fields, so it has begun to look at it left and right, and find excuses to interfere with normal market competition.
What is interesting is that the Americans, who have enjoyed high-quality and low-cost Chinese goods for more than 10 years, really want to cross the river and tear down bridges, eat enough to be cooked? Although the United States is rich, no matter how much it "hides its wealth from the people," the purchasing power of the common people is limited, and if the US Government raises tariffs and prohibits Chinese products from entering the US market, what will the American people live with in the future? There is absolutely no way to replace it. Therefore, Yellen will definitely regret her words.
The United States is now bent on going its own way, through a short-term sanction, suppression and containment strategy, in fact, it is a stupid trick of "killing a thousand enemies and harming eight hundred", and it has to impose what it thinks rules and will on China, which is naked bullying, not to mention that Obama also thinks that Chinese living an American life will put "the whole world into a miserable situation". Only when China guards the bottom line, resolutely fights back, and hurts the United States when it makes a move, and gives them a long memory, will the United States truly realize that China is by no means easy to provoke, and that the idea of attacking China is never a "good idea".