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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is planning a trip to China “in the near future,” the Treasury Department announced Wednesday, following a meeting between Yellen and a top Chinese official in Switzerland.
The secretary “looks forward to traveling to China and to welcoming her counterparts to the United States in the near future,” Treasury said in a readout of the meeting in Zurich between Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He.
It marks the latest outreach on behalf of the U.S. to China, with President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping meeting last November in Bali during the G-20 summit and Secretary of State Antony Blinken scheduled to visit the country in February.
A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that China and the U.S. were in touch about the specifics of Blinken’s visit.
The Treasury said Wednesday that China and the U.S. acknowledged that they should be talking to each other more about economic issues.
“Both sides agreed it is important for the functioning of the global economy to further enhance communication around macroeconomic and financial issues,” the Treasury readout said.
The announcement of Yellen’s upcoming trip comes amid reports that the White House is considering placing restrictions on U.S. investments in China, likely in the technology sector, where an economic and defense rivalry between the two countries has long been brewing. In 2022, Congress passed legislation to increase domestic production of semiconductors in a bid to pull the industry away from its long-established base in east Asia.
Such proposed restrictions also have a bipartisan foothold in Congress. Sens.
