United States Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is in Beijing on a visit Raimondo described as aiming to advertise “wholesome competitors” whereas additionally holding China accountable for safety problems with concern to the U.S.
“When you needed to place a tagline to the journey and the mission, it’s: shield what we should and promote the place we will,” Raimondo mentioned to reporters within the U.S. earlier than leaving for Beijing.
On Monday, Raimondo informed her Chinese language counterpart Wang Wentao in Beijing that the U.S. doesn’t goal to stifle China’s financial development, including that it seeks a “secure financial relationship that advantages each nations.”
“It’s advanced and difficult. Whereas we’ll disagree on some factors, I imagine direct, open, and sensible dialogue can result in progress,” Raimondo mentioned.
Raimondo is the fourth high U.S. official to go to China in three months. Her journey comes because the Biden administration is about to finalize restrictions on superior semiconductors established final yr and as China struggles to search out its ft after final yr’s pandemic lockdowns and amid a wide-ranging downturn within the property sector.
The commerce secretary mentioned she aimed to enhance journey and tourism between the U.S. and China, including that bringing Chinese language customer numbers again to the degrees earlier than the pandemic may imply tens of 1000’s of U.S. jobs.
Among the many “many challenges” to getting the U.S. and China again on the monitor to normalized commerce relations, she mentioned, are Beijing’s “unfair commerce practices,” an expression that’s positive to rankle with the Chinese language Communist Social gathering elite.
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Beijing is already smarting at restrictions on exports of semiconductors, expertise tools and experience, that are considered an try to carry again China’s emergence as a expertise chief. Chinese language President Xi Jinping has known as on President Biden to drop the restrictions.
In the meantime, Raimondo is reportedly in excessive demand, each in China, which hacked her unclassified e mail earlier this yr, and with the worldwide enterprise neighborhood, particularly the semiconductor sector, however her go to coincides with a number of exterior occasions that underscore the rifts between the world’s two main superpowers.
Cloudy horizon
Simply two weeks in the past the U.S. struck a deal with Japan and South Korea that included protection cooperation commitments and vows to fight “financial coercion” – in apparent references to China. China in flip accused the U.S. of making an attempt to divide the area and harm China’s pursuits.
In additional phrases that had been unlikely to be music to Beijing’s ears, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida mentioned all three international locations can be members of the U.N. Safety Council subsequent yr and they need to put stress on Beijing’s enlargement and Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
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In the meantime, in one other signal that U.S.-China tensions stay excessive, throughout final week’s BRICS summit in South Africa, Raimondo’s counterpart Wang Wentao learn an announcement from President Xi – who was unexpectedly unable to provide the speech himself – that criticized the U.S. for its “hegemonic” tendencies.
Wang, through Xi, warned towards “a brand new chilly conflict” and criticized a nation “obsessive about sustaining hegemony” for undermining rising markets and creating international locations.
All the identical, some observers conjecture that there are indicators the 2 nations could also be cautiously inching towards a extra conciliatory house.
Chinese language Premier Li Qiang has just lately mentioned the international locations can profit from commerce cooperation and sustaining secure international provide chains, whereas the U.S. eliminated commerce restrictions on 27 Chinese language companies, a transfer that has obtained the nod from Beijing.
Individually, the U.S. Division of Transportation introduced that it has agreed so as to add six extra flights operated by Chinese language airways, efficient Sept. 1.
“Such strikes point out that the Biden administration is regularly realizing that relentless suppression and restraint of China’s growth will influence America’s personal pursuits,” Gao Lingyun, an skilled on the Chinese language Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, informed the Global Times on Saturday.
However forward of her present Beijing mission, Raimondo, chatting with reporters within the U.S., was not pulling any punches on U.S. expectations of her journey.
“I wish to be clear with you round what my purpose is for the go to, which is to advertise a wholesome competitors,” Raimondo mentioned earlier than she left for China. “And by that, I imply a contest on a degree enjoying discipline, enjoying by the principles, as a result of on a degree enjoying discipline, no one can outcompete American companies or American staff.”
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.