Yellen’s trip will take place just three weeks after Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited China, highlighting the efforts by the Biden administration to reinstate lines of communication with counterparts in Beijing.
The Treasury chief may face questions from her counterparts on the Biden administration’s plans to regulate and potentially cut off US corporate investment in China in sensitive technologies. Consultations between top economic officials typically involve comparing notes on the outlooks for growth, and Yellen will have the opportunity to get Chinese authorities’ assessment of recent data that have spurred private economists to downgrade their estimates. By contrast, resilient US growth and elevated inflation have spurred expectations for further Federal Reserve tightening — a dynamic that’s sent the dollar higher against China’s yuan.
Both Yellen and top White House officials in recent months have sought to stress that the US is not seeking to decouple from its geopolitical rival but rather de-risk. Even so, in an April speech she warned that the US is prepared to accept economic costs in order to protect national-security interests from threats posed by China.