U.S. commerce secretary to visit China amid efforts to stabilize relations

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo will meet with Chinese language officers and American enterprise leaders subsequent week amid efforts to stabilize relations which have sunk to historic lows.

Raimondo’s Aug. 27-30 go to to Beijing and Shanghai goals for “constructive discussions on points regarding the U.S.-China industrial relationship, challenges confronted by U.S. companies, and areas for potential cooperation,” the Commerce Division stated in a information launch posted on its web site Tuesday.

China’s Ministry of Commerce stated the go to got here on the invitation of Minister Wang Wentao however gave no different particulars.

Raimondo’s go to follows the imposition of overseas funding controls by her company which have stung quite a few Chinese language firms.

Raimondo final met with Wang in Washington in Might to debate commerce points. Commerce tensions have solely ramped up since then.

President Joe Biden signed an government order on Aug. 9 to impose blocks and rules on U.S. high-tech funding in China, reflecting the intensifying competitors between the world’s two largest economies.

The order covers superior pc chips, micro electronics, quantum data applied sciences and artificial intelligence.

Senior administration officers stated the trouble is slender in scope and associated extra to nationwide safety than financial pursuits. It seeks to blunt China’s capability to make use of U.S. investments to improve its army capabilities, whereas additionally preserving broader ranges of commerce which are very important for each nations’ economies.

China says it’s assessing Biden’s order and can “take the required response measures primarily based on the outcomes of the evaluation.”

The US and China are more and more locked in a geopolitical competitors, at odds over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, human rights, China’s territorial claims within the South China Sea and its risk to assault the self-governing island democracy of Taiwan.

Nevertheless, given the significance of commerce with the U.S., and with its financial development sliding to 0.8% for the three months ending in June, China seems keen to put aside political variations as a way to have interaction on financial points.

Biden officers have insisted that they’ve no real interest in financial “decoupling” from China. But, the administration additionally has restricted the export of superior pc chips and retained the expanded tariffs arrange by former President Donald Trump.

China has in the meantime engaged in crackdowns on overseas firms, prompting a lack of confidence and the shifting of funding plans by world firms to different nations.

Calls by Chinese language chief Xi Jinping and others for extra financial self-reliance have left traders uneasy about their future within the state-dominated financial system.