US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo on Thursday expressed concern about recent actions Beijing has taken against US companies in a meeting with Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao (王文濤).
The encounter marked the highest-level visit to the US by a Chinese official in more than two years.
Raimondo spoke about “the recent spate of PRC actions taken against US companies operating in the PRC,” during the meeting in Washington, the department said in a statement, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China.
Photo: Reuters
She did not mention any company by name, but China on Sunday said it was targeting Idaho-based Micron Technology Inc’s products, citing national security reasons, a step that has triggered calls in Washington for retaliation.
The pair also had “candid and substantive” talks about issues relating to the US-China commercial relationship, including the overall environment in both countries for trade and investment, and areas for potential cooperation, the department said.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce in its own statement said that the meeting was candid and constructive, and that Wang expressed concerns about US chip policy and export controls with Raimondo.
Wang was on his way to an APEC forum in Detroit, Michigan, where economic coercion and reorienting supply chains were expected to be on the agenda.
He was expected to meet with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) at the APEC gathering.
The trip fits a broader trend of Chinese officials traveling more often in the months since the country ended its COVID-19 restrictions.
It also coincides with a push by the administration of US President Joe Biden to prevent relations between the two countries from worsening after a series of episodes, ranging from the furor over an alleged spy balloon that traversed the US in February to tit-for-tat sanctions and export controls on semiconductors.
Speaking at the end of the G7 summit in Japan on Sunday, Biden expressed optimism that relations would “thaw very shortly.”
After that, Xie Feng (謝鋒) arrived in the US to serve as China’s new ambassador.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS