US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen plans to seek clarity from China on its plans to ease COVID-19 restrictions and deal with problems in its property sector when she meets with China’s central bank chief today, Treasury officials said yesterday.
It is important for top economic officials from the world’s two largest economies to discuss global challenges in person and learn more about each other’s policy plans, the officials told reporters in Bali ahead of a G20 summit.
Yellen is prepared to discuss with People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang (易綱) the outlook for US inflation and growth, but would likely leave monetary policy plans to the US Federal Reserve, the officials said.
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The administration of US President Joe Biden has long raised concerns about the resilience of supply chains in China that have been hit by repeated COVID-19 lockdowns and growing national security restrictions.
In India last week, Yellen made a case for closer ties between the world’s two largest democracies, with India taking on a “friend-shoring” role as a trusted supplier and counterweight to China.
Yellen’s meeting with Yi comes on the same day that Biden is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in an effort to limit a recent downward spiral of the superpowers’ relations.
The officials said they do not plan to offer advice to China on its COVID-19 restrictions or its property sector woes, but rather seek to understand Chinese officials’ approach so they can better interpret the effects of policy changes.
China’s economy has grown 3 percent over the past three quarters and is stabilizing on an “upward trend,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) said, vowing to continue to support the economy with policy measures.
The comments were made in a meeting with IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva on Saturday during an ASEAN summit in Cambodia, a Chinese foreign ministry statement said yesterday.
China is working to keep market operations, employment and prices stable, Li said in the statement.
“We will continue to promote the comprehensive implementation of a package of policies and measures for stabilizing the economy with full effect ... and strive to achieve better results throughout the year,” Li said.
Meanwhile, Georgieva warned of risks to the global economy from the rivalry between China and the US, while describing tariffs put on Chinese imports under former US president Donald Trump as counterproductive.
“We may be sleepwalking into a world that is poorer and less secure as a result,” Georgieva told the Washington Post in an interview published on Saturday.
Biden has yet to resolve the key policy issue surrounding tariffs on Chinese goods established by his predecessor that cost US importers billions of US dollars.
“It is important to think through actions and what they may generate as counter actions carefully, because once you let the genie out of the bottle, it’s hard to put it back in,” Georgieva said of the tariffs.
Relations between the world’s two largest economies have strained in recent years over issues like tariffs, Taiwan, intellectual property, cybersecurity and the removal of Hong Kong’s autonomy, among others.
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