Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will strike a conciliatory tone when she talks about US-China relations on Thursday, calling for “cooperation on the urgent global challenges of our day” while supporting economic restrictions on China to advance U.S national security interests.
“We seek a healthy economic relationship with China: one that fosters growth and innovation in both countries,” Yellen says in prepared remarks to be delivered at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
Yellen plans to deliver a speech that calls for improved relations between the two countries, which have seen increasingly strained relations after the discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon in U.S. air space and since the Communist nation has grown its ties with Russia despite its continued invasion into Ukraine.
“A growing China that plays by international rules is good for the United States and the world,” Yellen says. “Both countries can benefit from healthy competition in the economic sphere. But healthy economic competition – where both sides benefit – is only sustainable if that competition is fair.”
The speech comes as tensions between the U.S. and China are at a fever pitch. The discovery of a surveillance balloon outfitted with high-tech equipment designed to gather sensitive information, making a pass over a sensitive U.S. military site, has drawn lawmakers’ scrutiny. And China’s support of Russia as it continues to wage its war in Ukraine is causing concern among Western leaders. Though China has maintained that it is neutral in the conflict, stating that it won’t sell weapons to either side in the war, it recently held joint military drills with Russia.
