US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has met with China’s deputy central bank governor Xuan Chengneng in Washington this week to discuss coordination on financial market monitoring and money laundering.
The talks this week marked a continuation of the sixth meeting of a bilateral economic working group and took place on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
They also followed Yellen’s meeting last week with China’s vice-minister of finance Liao Min, covering Beijing’s most ambitious stimulus measures since the coronavirus pandemic and addressing other macroeconomic issues.
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Discussions about the stimulus continued during Yellen’s talks with Xuan, which was co-led by her assistant secretary for international affairs Brent Neiman.
According to a Treasury statement on Thursday, Neiman and Xuan “also received readouts from ... technical exercises on international macroeconomic data reporting, strengthening communication in the event of banking stress, and climate and insurance risk”.
“The Joint Treasury-People’s Bank of China Cooperation and Exchange on Anti-Money Laundering also held its third meeting” as part of this week’s talks, and “both sides raised issues of concern”.
The statement did not elaborate.
Separately, the People’s Bank of China said that the Chinese side briefed the US on the recent package of monetary policies rolled out over the past weeks, including the 500 billion yuan swap scheme that enabled brokerages, fund companies and insurers to obtain liquidity from the central bank through asset collateralisation for stock purchases.
Announced October 21, it was the first such operation by the Chinese central bank and considered an effort to provide liquidity to the stock market and boost investor confidence.
“Meanwhile, the Chinese delegation expressed concerns to the US side regarding certain issues,” it added, without giving further details.
Issues on “financial policy topics of mutual interest” were also discussed, including “the macroeconomic and financial situations ... monetary and financial policies, financial stability and regulation, capital markets, anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism”.
The negotiations were “professional, pragmatic, candid and constructive”, the Chinese statement added.
China’s top legislative body recently conducted a review of draft revisions to its Anti-Money Laundering Law, which aim to “monitor and analyse new money-laundering risks”, with a focus on emerging technologies like cryptocurrency.
China’s Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate revised laws in August to include cryptocurrencies, online game coins and tipping during live streaming as channels of money laundering.
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