A top Treasury Department official met Friday with China’s new ambassador to the US, part of a series of tentative, recent steps to revive high-level engagement between their two countries following a contentious period.
(Bloomberg) — A top Treasury Department official met Friday with China’s new ambassador to the US, part of a series of tentative, recent steps to revive high-level engagement between their two countries following a contentious period.
The meeting between Jay Shambaugh, the Treasury’s undersecretary for international affairs, and Xie Feng “was candid, constructive, and part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage our bilateral relationship,” the Treasury Department said in a brief statement.
The department added that Shambaugh had “raised issues of concern,” but did not elaborate.
The Biden administration has moved to shift critical supply chains away from China and deny the country access to technologies that the US says might threaten its national security. At the same time, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has urged Beijing to collaborate with the US in addressing climate change and debt relief for developing nations.
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Xie, who arrived in the US in May, is considered a trusted adviser to President Xi Jinping and served in Washington for several years earlier in his career. Shambaugh was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration and is on leave as a professor of economics and international affairs at George Washington University.
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Yellen for months has considered a visit to Beijing — reiterating her intention as recently as last month — but continuing bilateral tensions over Taiwan, trade, conflicting claims regarding the South China Sea and the flight of a Chinese balloon over the US have left the plans unrealized.
The Treasury statement made no reference to a potential trip.
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