Yellen says US not seeking ‘winner-take-all’ competition with China

Chinese Premier Li Qiang (right) shakes hands with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 7 July – AFP

BEIJING (AFP): Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Friday that the United States is not seeking “winner-take-all” competition, in a visit to Beijing aimed at stabilising fraught ties.

Yellen’s four-day trip is her first as Treasury chief to China, with which the United States is butting heads over trade curbs, human rights and a litany of other disputes.

But Washington is working to dial down the temperature, and on Friday Yellen underscored to Li that the United States does not seek an economic showdown.

“We seek healthy economic competition that is not winner-take-all but that, with a fair set of rules, can benefit both countries over time,” she told Li at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

The United States has said it is seeking to “de-risk” from China by limiting the world’s second-largest economy’s access to advanced technology deemed crucial to Washington’s national security.

Yellen underlined to Premier Li that while Washington would “in certain circumstances, need to pursue targeted actions to protect its national security”, that should not derail ties.

“We may disagree in these instances,” she said.

“We should not allow any disagreement to lead to misunderstandings that needlessly worsen our bilateral economic and financial relationship.” Highlighting the challenges, just days before Yellen’s visit, Beijing unveiled new export controls on metals key to semiconductor manufacturing on national security grounds, in the latest salvo in the chips war.

The Treasury secretary Friday told American businesspeople Washington was “concerned” about the curbs.

She stressed during her visit that Washington was not seeking a “wholesale separation of our economies”.

“A decoupling of the world’s two largest economies would be destabilising for the global economy,” Yellen told a meeting with representatives of US business at a session hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in the capital.

Despite tensions, Beijing has struck an optimistic tone about the visit.

Premier Li told Yellen on Friday that China could see the relationship recovering after a difficult period.

“Yesterday, the moment you arrived at our airport and left the plane, we saw a rainbow,” Li said.

“I think it can apply to the US-China relationship too: after experiencing a round of winds and rains, we surely can see a rainbow.”