U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Chinese officials on Tuesday that the United States has no plans to cut economic ties with China, but she expressed a litany of concerns that led business to label China as “uninvestable.” to describe.
Ms. Raimondo, who oversees both trade facilitation and US restrictions on China’s access to advanced technology, spoke to several of China’s top officials on Tuesday. That included meeting with Premier Li Qiang, China’s second highest official, and Vice Premier He Lifeng, who oversees many economic issues, at the Great Hall of the People, next to Tiananmen Square in the heart of China. Beijing.
Ms. Raimondo said she has been pressuring Chinese officials about a variety of challenges faced by US companies operating in China. Businesses have raised concerns about long-running issues such as intellectual property theft, as well as a range of newer developments such as corporate raids, a new counterintelligence law and exorbitant fines that come without explanation, she said during an extensive interview with high-level reporters . speed train from Beijing to Shanghai on Tuesday night.
“Increasingly, I hear from companies that China can no longer invest because it has become too risky,” she said.
Ms. Raimondo said after the meetings that she had expressed various concerns from US companies such as Intel, Micron and Boeing, but that she “has not received any commitment.” Beijing scuttled Intel’s acquisition of another semiconductor company earlier this month by failing to approve the deal by antitrust authorities. The company has also severely curtailed some of Micron’s semiconductor sales in China since May and has halted nearly all Boeing aircraft purchases in recent years, opting primarily for Airbus aircraft from Europe instead.
“I was very firm in our expectations. I think I’ve been heard,” she added. “We will have to see if they take action.”
Ms. Raimondo also asked for China’s cooperation on broader threats such as climate change, fentanyl and artificial intelligence. The Chinese, in turn, asked the United States to relax export controls on advanced technology and to withdraw a recent executive order banning new investment in certain advanced technologies, Ms. Raimondo said. The Commerce Secretary said she had rejected these requests. “We don’t negotiate on national security issues,” she said.
Still, Ms. Raimondo tried to reassure the Chinese that export controls only applied to a small portion of US-China trade, and that other economic opportunities between the countries should be embraced.
“This is not about disconnection,” she said. “This is about maintaining our very consistent trade relationship, which is good for America, good for China and good for the world. An unstable economic relationship between China and the United States is bad for the world.”
The official Xinhua news agency said late Tuesday that Prime Minister Li had told Ms Raimondo that economic relations between China and the United States were “both-beneficial.” But he also warned that “politicizing economic and trade issues and exaggerating the concept of security will not only seriously damage bilateral relations and mutual trust, but also undermine the interests of companies and people of the two countries, and will have a disastrous impact on the global economy.”
Ms. Raimondo’s visit is part of an effort by the Biden administration to halt a long-term deterioration in the US relationship with China and restore communications. She is the fourth senior Biden administration official to travel to China in three months.
Her conversations with Chinese officials — which ranged from issues of national security to tourism commercial opportunities — testified to both the economic potential of the trade relationship and its enormous challenges.
Chinese officials have welcomed her visit as an opportunity to ease tensions and voice concerns. Sitting in a red-carpet reception area on the second floor of the Great Hall, Mr. He said at the beginning of their meeting that he was willing to cooperate with Ms. Raimondo and hoped that the United States would adopt a rational and practical policy. She responded by outlining what the Biden administration considers its priorities.
“The commercial relationship between the US and China is one of the most global of consequences, and managing that relationship responsibly is critical for both our nations and even the entire world,” said Ms. Raimondo. “And while we will of course never compromise in protecting our national security, I want to be clear that we are not trying to disconnect or hold back the Chinese economy.”
On Monday, Ms. Raimondo and China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met and agreed to hold regular talks between the two countries on trade issues. These conversations will involve both business leaders and government officials. The two governments also agreed to exchange information, starting with a meeting of their senior aides Tuesday morning in Beijing, about how the United States is enforcing its export controls.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ms. Raimondo met with China’s Culture and Tourism Minister Hu Heping. That meeting came less than three weeks after Beijing lifted a ban on group travel to the United States it had imposed during the pandemic, when China almost completely closed its borders for nearly three years.
The two ministers agreed at the meeting that the United States and China would host a meeting in China early next year to promote the travel industry, the latest in a series of business promotion activities that Ms Raimondo has organized.
The number of trips from China to the United States is still less than a third of its pre-pandemic level, the United States Travel Association, an industry group, said on Saturday.
The number of direct flights between the two countries is still less than a tenth of its pre-pandemic level. Before the pandemic, Chinese airlines carried the most passengers between the two countries. But after Beijing regularly blocked US airlines’ flights to China during the pandemic due to onboard Covid cases — while allowing Chinese airlines’ flights to continue — the Biden administration began pushing for strict reciprocity.
Following the retirement of many pilots and flight attendants during the pandemic, U.S. airlines have struggled to meet travel demand within the United States. They have been slow to restore long-haul service to China, which requires many crews, although United Airlines recently announced it will increase the frequency of flights from San Francisco to Shanghai and resume flights from San Francisco to Beijing this fall. .
Senior U.S. officials previously tended to fly between Beijing and Shanghai during visits to China, but the Commerce Department decided to move its sizable delegation by train for the trip. Massive Chevrolet Suburban SUVs carrying Ms. Raimondo and her assistants drove straight onto the platform to unload them onto one of China’s high-speed electric trains, which travel long distances at 217 miles per hour, or 350 kilometers per hour.
The trains travel from Beijing to Shanghai, a distance comparable to the journey from New York to Atlanta or Chicago, in just four and a half hours, depending on how many stops they make. The trains, usually with 16 or more passenger cars, depart several times an hour in each direction.
