mLess than three weeks later the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, it was the turn of the Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, to travel to Beijing. She arrived on the afternoon of Thursday 6 July and left on Sunday after about ten hours of talks with her Chinese interlocutors: Prime Minister Li Qiang, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Finance He Lifeng, Finance Minister Liu Kun and the newly appointed head of the People’s Bank of China, Pan Gongsheng. A sign of the importance this trip had for Americans: the New York Times he did not hesitate to dedicate a direct Sunday to him on his website. Very soon, John Kerry, Joe Biden’s “Mr. Climate”, is also expected to visit China.
The main good news from the visit of MMyself Yellen… it just happened. Eight months after the meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, in Bali in November 2022, the two countries are finally talking to each other again. The story of the Chinese spy balloon, which according to the Pentagon did not spy on anything flying over the United States at the beginning of the year, seems to fade away. The US Treasury Secretary’s “charm operation” seems to have worked. No incidents were to be deplored during those four days. The Chinese were even enthusiastic about his dexterity with chopsticks.
mMyself Yellen had an asset. In the US administration, the position of the Treasury Secretary, who needs China to make ends meet, is that of the “good guy” of the team, while his trade manager colleague, who notes the abysmal US deficit with Beijing, is the “bad boy”. “Our main concern is the trade barriers put in place by the Trump administration, and which remain, as well as the 1,300 Chinese companies that appear on the Entity List [elle répertorie les entreprises dont les activités sont interdites ou limitées par Washington] », explains Wu Xinbo, professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai. Disputes that are not within Janet Yellen’s purview. On Saturday, New China news agency also described the visit as “constructive”but I judged it“the abuse of national security does not favor normal economic and commercial exchanges”.
Left for military matters
The US Treasury secretary has emphasized the difference between decoupling economies (decoupling) and risk reduction (derisking): “There is an important distinction between, on the one hand, the decoupling and, on the other hand, the diversification of crucial supply chains. We act in the name of national security [qui sont] targeted. » But Beijing considers the two terms synonymous. These words are all the less likely to convince the Chinese that the United States does not just limit its exposure to China, but blocks exports of the most sensitive technologies.
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