US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday (July 7) appeared to underline importance of US-China relations and said that decoupling of economies of the two nations was “virtually impossible”. She said such a development would destabilise global markets. Yellen is currently on visit to China. The four-day trip is her first to China as Treasury chief. She is the second high-ranking US official to visit China.
The US has said in recent months that it was seeking to “de-risk” from China by limiting its access to advanced tech deemed crucial to Washington’s national security. The US has blacklisted a number of Chinese companies to prevent them from accessing the most advanced chips while pushing its allies to follow suit.
The US has also blacklisted a number of Chinese companies in order to prevent their access to most advanced chips and has pushed allies to follow suit.
No “wholesale separation” of economies”
Yellen sought to stress that there were no plans to completely separate the two economies.
“We seek to diversify, not to decouple. A decoupling of the world’s two largest economies would be destabilising for the global economy,” Yellen told a meeting with representatives of US businesses at a session hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in
Beijing.
“And it would be virtually impossible to undertake.”
Just before Yellen’s visit, China announced new export controls on metals that are necessary for semiconductor manufacturing on national security grounds. This was seen as latest salvo in the chips war.
On Friday, Yellen told US businesspeople that Washington was “concerned” about the curbs.
“We are still evaluating the impact of these actions, but they remind us of the importance of building resilient and diversified supply chains,” she said.
(This is a breaking story. More to follow shortly)
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