Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen hit out at her Chinese counterpart over China’s growing exports of cheap electric vehicles and other green energy goods, saying they pose a threat to American jobs and urged Beijing to scale back its industrial strategy, she said. US government.
Ms. Yellen also warned her counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, that Chinese companies could face “significant consequences” if they provided material support to Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to a Treasury summary published Saturday on the two-day talks in the southern city of Guangzhou.
The meetings on Friday and Saturday were an attempt by the world’s two largest economies to address trade and geopolitical differences as the countries try to stabilize a relationship that hit a low point last year.
The US and China agreed to hold additional talks in the future to curb international money laundering and promote “balanced development”. The latter is partly aimed at addressing concerns that China’s focus on factory production to bolster its economy has led to an export surplus that distorts global markets.
Increasing China’s heavily subsidized green technology exports was the focus of Ms. Yellen’s second trip to the country as Treasury secretary. Cheap Chinese electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels are of particular concern to the Biden administration, which has invested in these sectors at home.
“I think the Chinese realize how concerned we are about the implications of their industrial strategy for the United States, about the possibility of flooding our markets with exports that make it difficult for American companies to compete,” Ms Yellen told reporters after the meetings. . .
Before her talks with Chinese officials, Ms. Yellen met with American and European executives whose businesses operate in China. He heard their concerns about China’s treatment of foreign companies and discussed how the Chinese export push was playing out across the global economy.
Ms Yellen received a warm welcome in Guangzhou, but China is pushing back against the idea that its economic strategy is a threat.
In a social media post on Saturday, Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, argued that Chinese exports are a public good.
“Globally, high-quality industrial capacity and new quality productive forces are not in excess, but in dire scarcity.” wrote Mr. Liu. “How to ensure that the world, especially developing countries, benefits from such a capability is a constant test of human consciousness and ingenuity.”
After the talks concluded on Saturday, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported that Chinese officials expressed their own disappointment to Ms Yellen over US economic strategy.
“China has expressed serious concern over the US economic and trade restrictive measures against China and fully responded to the issue of production capacity,” Xinhua reported.
Ms. Yellen acknowledged that the issue was complicated for China. “It’s not going to be solved in an afternoon or a month,” he said.
Beyond economic issues, Ms. Yellen and Mr. He discussed Russia’s war in Ukraine and growing concern in the United States that Chinese companies are helping support Moscow’s military. The Biden administration has already imposed trade restrictions on Chinese companies it has accused of violating US sanctions.
“We’ve been clear with China that we see Russia gaining support from goods that Chinese companies supply to Russia,” Ms Yellen said.
She added that Mr had told her that China has a policy of not providing Russia with military support. He expressed optimism that the two sides could work together on the issue.
Ms. Yellen was traveling Saturday afternoon from Guangzhou to Beijing, where she was scheduled to meet Sunday with Premier Li Qiang and Yin Yong, the mayor of Beijing.
Siyi Zhao contributed reporting from Seoul.
