Trade mission: Raimondo speaking as she visits a US beauty healthcare products showcase for the Chinese market, at a hotel in Beijing. — AFP
Beijing: US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with her Chinese counterpart in Beijing yesterday, as Washington works to cool trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
Raimondo’s visit – which will last until tomorrow – is the latest in a series of high-level trips to China by US officials in recent months.
The visits could culminate in a meeting between the nations’ leaders, with US President Joe Biden saying recently that he was expecting to sit down with China’s Xi Jinping this year.
Raimondo met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, who said it was a “great pleasure to conduct dialogue and coordination with you in the field of economy and trade”.
She arrived in Beijing on Sunday and was met by Lin Feng, the director of the commerce ministry’s Americas and Oceania department, as well as US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.
In posts on the social media platform X, Raimondo said she was “looking forward to a productive few days”.
The commerce department has said Raimondo hopes for “constructive discussions on issues relating to the US-China commercial relationship, challenges faced by US businesses, and areas for potential cooperation”.
She will also travel to China’s economic powerhouse Shanghai, Washington said.
Relations between the United States and China have plummeted to some of their worst levels in decades, with Washington’s trade curbs near the top of the laundry list of disagreements.
Washington says its restrictions are crucial to safeguarding national security, while Beijing sees them as seeking to curb its economic rise.
This month, Biden issued an executive order aimed at restricting certain American investments in sensitive high-tech areas in China – a move Beijing blasted as being “anti-globalisation”. — AFP
