Business
US Commerce Secretary to Visit China Next Week
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo will visit China from August 27 to August 30, both countries confirmed.
According to the readout from the Chinese side, Wang Wentao, the Chinese minister of commerce, had invited Raimondo to come. The American side left out that specific information and only stated that Raimondo would meet with “senior PRC officials and U.S. business leaders.”
She is also scheduled to talk about “issues relating to the U.S.-China commercial relationship, challenges faced by U.S. businesses, and areas for potential cooperation,” the U.S. readout revealed.
According to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Raimondo's visit will give the Biden administration a chance to justify a new executive order that restricts American investments that promote China's development of critical technologies.
Following recent flights by CIA Director Bill Burns in May, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June, and other trips by U.S. officials in July, Raimondo made his trip. Janet Yellen, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, and U.S. John Kerry, Special Envoy for Climate.
“We are not sending cabinet officials to China to change China, nor do we expect these conversations to change the United States. Rather, we each have the opportunity through this high-level engagement to ensure that there is a basic stable foundation in the relationship even as we compete intensively in a number of domains,” Sullivan told reporters on a conference call when asked about the cadence in bilateral meetings.
The relationship between the two greatest economies in the world, according to Sullivan, is “complex” and “competitive,” and the Biden administration will continue to engage in “intense diplomacy.”
“We’re focused on protecting our national security and ensuring resilient supply chains and otherwise sustaining an economic relationship with China. And as long as China’s playing by the rules and is operating as a responsible actor in the global economy, we think a stable Chinese economy is a good thing for the world,” he added.
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