Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to Beijing this week to meet with senior Chinese officials.
Treasury said Yellen is expected to discuss a number of macroeconomic and financial issues, as well as how the US and China can “responsibly manage our relationship, communicate directly on areas of concern, and work together to address global challenges.”
A senior administration official told reporters that the trip is aimed at “deepening and increasing the frequency of communication between our countries in the future and stabilizing the relationship, avoiding miscommunication and expanding collaboration where we can.”
However, the official noted that the Biden administration does not expect significant progress. Treasury said it would provide more details later.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV confirmed that Yellen will visit from Thursday to Sunday.
In a speech in April, Yellen described three economic priorities for the US-China relationship: securing national security interests, fostering mutually beneficial growth, and cooperating on global challenges like climate change and the debt overhang.
The senior administration official told reporters that Yellen’s visit will underscore those goals.
Still, Yellen stressed in April that the United States will not hesitate to “defend our vital interests.” However, he noted that these measures are “motivated solely by our concerns about our security and values” and are not intended to “gain a competitive economic advantage.”
The senior administration official reiterated that stance on Sunday, saying: “We are not seeking to decouple our economies. A complete cessation of trade and investment would be destabilizing both for our countries and for the world economy.”
Secretary of state Antonio Blinken met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing last month when he stressed the importance of economic relationship between the two nations. He noted that the growth of major economies like China is in the interest of the US, but said “it’s not in our interest to provide technology to China that could be used against us.”
Evelyn Cheng, CNBC contributed.
