Close communication between the United States and China on economic issues is vital, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Wednesday ahead of a meeting with a top Chinese official in Zurich.
“Amid a complicated global economic outlook, there is a pressing need for the two largest economies in the world to closely communicate on global macroeconomics and financial conditions,” Yellen said at the start of her first face-to-face meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He.
The countries also needed to “exchange views on how we are responding to various challenges,” she said.
Yellen voiced hope that the pair, who have already met virtually on three occasions, would on Wednesday “delve deeply into topics of mutual concern, including macroeconomic cooperation and climate finance.”
Speaking through an interpreter, Liu also called for “serious communication”.
Wednesday’s meeting comes amid swelling diplomatic efforts to keep high tensions in check between the two behemoths.
A US official confirmed Tuesday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Beijing during in early February.
He will be the first US secretary of state to visit China since October 2018 when his Republican predecessor Mike Pompeo, known for his blistering criticism of Beijing, made a brief stop following talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang.
Blinken’s trip was announced without any dates back in November, when President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met in Bali on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit, with both leaders voicing guarded hope at preventing disagreements from spiralling out of control.
At that meeting, they pledged “to continue responsibly managing the competition between our two countries and to explore potential areas of cooperation,” the State Department said in November.
Referring to the Bali meeting, Yellen stressed Wednesday that “we share a responsibility to show that China and the United States can manage our differences and prevent competition from becoming anything ever near conflict.”
“While we have areas of disagreement, and we will convey them directly,” she said, “we should not allow misunderstandings, particularly those stemming from a lack of communication, to unnecessarily worsen our bilateral economic and financial relationship.”
