U.S. and China Look to Repair Ties, Again

SINGAPORE—U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing last month was billed as an effort to put a floor under fast-deteriorating ties between the world’s two biggest economies.

In the weeks that followed, if anything, the U.S.-China relationship has gotten rockier.

On Thursday, as a fresh emissary from the Biden administration, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, arrives in Beijing, some Chinese observers have struck a cautiously optimistic tone, saying her meetings could help establish more avenues for dialogue between two governments that have struggled to maintain high-level talks in recent years.

From Beijing’s perspective, “Yellen is a more rational voice on China issues within the Biden administration,” said Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University.

She will have her work cut out for her, however, with Washington and Beijing trading fresh blows across trade, technology and security affairs. In recent weeks, the White House has confirmed reports of China ramping up its military presence in Cuba, while President Biden called Chinese leader Xi Jinping a dictator. Washington has been preparing measures to curb exports of advanced semiconductors to China and to cut Chinese companies off from U.S. cloud computing platforms.

Beijing, meanwhile, responded by blasting what it called American attempts to contain and smear China. It announced this week new export controls on two minerals critical for advanced chips, in what Chinese observers called a countermeasure against U.S. efforts to derail China’s tech development.

While Yellen, as Treasury secretary, doesn’t have direct oversight over many of Washington’s measures to curb China’s technological development, her visit nonetheless offers an opportunity to build more communication channels between the two sides and reach a consensus on areas of practical cooperation, Wu said.

Yellen’s visit comes amid simmering bilateral tensions that have prompted both the U.S. and China to reconsider the deep commercial and investment ties that have defined the relationship for decades.

In her first trip to China since taking office as Treasury secretary in 2021, Yellen is expected to hold talks with senior Chinese officials, though it wasn’t clear she would get to meet Xi. Neither side has provided a detailed itinerary for her visit, which concludes Sunday.

Yellen had hoped to visit Beijing earlier, though such plans were waylaid by flare-ups in U.S.-China tensions, including spats over then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s

Some Chinese officials consider Yellen a friendlier face than other Biden administration officials, noting that she has spoken favorably of continued U.S.-China cooperation and warned against attempts to “decouple” the world’s two biggest economies.

In an April speech, Yellen said the U.S. seeks “a healthy economic relationship with China,” as well as cooperation on global challenges including climate change and debt distress in the developing world—subjects expected to feature in her Beijing meetings, alongside differences over trade, technology and the status of Taiwan, an island democracy that Beijing claims as its territory.

Yellen is also expected to raise U.S. concerns over China’s use of law-enforcement raids, interrogations and other pressure tactics on foreign firms, including a partial ban on using products from Micron Technology,

Beijing’s new export controls, announced Monday, on two minerals that the U.S. considers critical to semiconductor production are another likely topic. The timing of the announcement, just before Yellen’s trip, points to Beijing’s resolve in resisting what it sees as American efforts to contain China, according to Wu, the Fudan professor.

“China is creating more bargaining chips, in order to make the U.S. pay attention to its concerns,” Wu said.

Chinese officials, for their part, have sought to reassure foreign investors that they remain open for business from the West, as they attempt to rejuvenate a sluggish domestic economy and reduce unemployment. Even so, in public comments, Beijing has generally put the onus on Washington to improve relations.

In a Monday meeting with Yellen, China’s ambassador to the U.S., Xie Feng, said Beijing hopes “the U.S. side will work with China” to stabilize relations, and address Chinese concerns in economic and trade areas.

Despite having launched what amounts to a “technological war” against China, “the U.S. hopes that they can act unilaterally while China makes no response; this is an unreasonable piece of wishful thinking,” Hu Xijin, a former editor-in-chief of a nationalistic party-run tabloid and an influential commentator, wrote on social media ahead of Yellen’s trip.

“Both sides need to properly manage the damage they do to each other, and prevent it from expanding endlessly,” Hu said. “Regardless, we should welcome Yellen’s visit.”

Write to Chun Han Wong at [email protected]