On the second leg of her visit to China, Yellen gave an answer to the Chinese side on the spot, and the Chinese side gave an answer on the spot for what the United States wanted. What is Yellen's statement to the Chinese side on the trend of Sino-US economic and trade cooperation, and how does China respond to the "request" put forward by the US side?
According to a number of media reports, on April 7, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen arrived in Beijing, the second leg of her trip to China, and held talks with high-level Chinese officials. It is reported that as soon as the meeting began, Yellen said that as the two largest economies in the world, China and the United States have a responsibility to "manage our complex relationship responsibly" and play a leadership role in addressing global challenges.
As the first senior Biden administration official to visit China in 2024, Yellen's remarks clearly give people a sense that the United States intends to deepen cooperation with China. In her own words, China and the United States have placed their bilateral relationship on a more stable basis, and only through direct and open communication can the relationship make progress. But as the talks go deeper, it's not hard to see that Yellen's trip is not just about cooperation.
The New York Times quoted American experts on the 5th as saying that the core argument that Yellen is trying to "sell" to China is that "do as I say, not as I do": that is, the Biden administration can actively subsidize and support the US new energy industry, but China, which has "overcapacity", cannot go further and further on the road of exporting "high-quality and low-priced" new energy products. Although the United States has no intention of "decoupling from China", they do not allow the rapid development of Chinese enterprises and the impact on local American enterprises and even the American market.
Based on the various "containment" policies introduced by the Biden administration in recent times, Yellen's statement can be regarded as a "confession" to China. You must know that as early as Guangzhou, the first stop of this China trip, Yellen repeatedly mentioned the issues of "anti-decoupling" and "overcapacity" at an event hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce. Almost at the same time, Washington also hyped up the various "harms" that China's rapid development might bring in front of its European allies. This kind of practice of sending a signal of cooperation while seeking to suppress China is a common trick of the United States.
Fortunately, China is not unprepared for this, and in the face of the "pressure" from the US side, China responded as soon as possible. During the Guangzhou talks, the Chinese high-level gave answers in front of Yellen. According to the press release, China expressed serious concern about the US economic and trade restrictions on China and made a full response on the issue of production capacity.
Although the official report did not elaborate on how the Chinese side refuted these unreasonable accusations, the words of Chinese Ambassador to the United States Xie Feng still sent an important signal to the outside world. Ambassador Xie Feng said that China's "overcapacity" is an outright false proposition, because across the world, high-quality production capacity is still in short supply, not in a state of surplus, and the challenges facing the US economy have nothing to do with China's development.
It is worth mentioning that the problem of "overcapacity" in China that Yellen said is actually only aimed at a few special industries, that is, new energy vehicles, photovoltaic products and lithium batteries. In view of the fact that the U.S. government only targets China's export of the "new three" industries and China's most dominant export industries, one cannot help but wonder whether the "worry" of the US side comes from China's "overcapacity" or from the concern about the rapid development of Chinese enterprises.
Now, China has positively denied the term "overcapacity" and expressed concern about the unreasonable sanctions imposed by the United States, apparently "reminding" the United States that it has always been the United States, not China, that has truly undermined trade rules and hindered the return of China-US economic and trade relations to the right track. If the US still wants to stabilize China-US relations and deepen cooperation with China, it should stop slandering and provoking and create a good business environment.