Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Biden administration was prepared to accept economic costs as it sought to protect US national security interests from threats posed by China, even as she appealed to Beijing to cooperate on shared global concerns.
(Bloomberg) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Biden administration was prepared to accept economic costs as it sought to protect US national security interests from threats posed by China, even as she appealed to Beijing to cooperate on shared global concerns.
“National security is of paramount importance in our relationship with China,” Yellen said in excerpts released by the Treasury of a speech she’s scheduled to deliver Thursday morning in Washington. “We will not compromise on these concerns, even when they force trade-offs with our economic interests.”
The remarks, set against a backdrop of deteriorating relations with Beijing, outline three priorities in dealing with China. The administration will defend its national security interests and express concerns over China’s behavior; seek healthy and fair economic competition; and aim to engage on issues like climate change and debt relief in the developing world.
The excerpts made no mention of a possible visit by Yellen to Beijing — a trip that has been planned for months but not yet scheduled.
The Treasury chief set a defiant tone in some of her remarks, contesting predictions that China would eclipse the US as the world’s largest economic power and lead to a “clash between nations.”
“Pronouncements of US decline have been around for decades, but they have always been proven wrong,” she is to say in the address at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. “The United States has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to adapt and reinvent to face new challenges. This time will be no different.”
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She also spoke about US grievances over China’s “expanded support for its state-owned enterprises and domestic private firms to dominate foreign competitors” and its alleged theft of intellectual property.
She tempered that by declaring the Biden administration wasn’t motivated in its actions by a desire to hold back China’s development.
“These national security actions are not designed for us to gain a competitive economic advantage, or stifle China’s economic and technological modernization,” she said.
Read More: How China Aims to Counter US Efforts at ‘Containment’
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has made trying to match or beat the US in the technology sphere a major focus. Last month, he criticized Washington for what he called a strategy of “containment and suppression” — led by trade restrictions, blacklists and investment curbs — that has challenged China’s technological development.
Yellen repeated her view that China and the US, as the world’s two largest economies, had a responsibility to work together.
“It is important that we make progress on global issues regardless of our other disagreements,” she said. “That’s what the world needs from its two largest economies.”
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