U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will meet her Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in San Francisco this week, marking the third meeting between the pair since May.
Ms. Raimondo first mentioned the meeting during an interview with CNN that aired on Nov. 12. A Commerce Department spokesperson later confirmed two commerce chiefs’ planned meeting to Reuters, without providing details.
The APEC summit, which runs until Nov. 17, is headlined by the highly-anticipated meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday. Ahead of the summit, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen held two days of talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in San Francisco last week.
The commerce secretary told CNN that it was time to “ratchet down the temperature” of the relationship between China and the United States, before acknowledging that there is “great competition” between the two sides.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo (R) speaks during a meeting with China's Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao (not pictured) at the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing on Aug. 28, 2023. Andy Wong/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
She also emphasized the importance of her China trip in August. “What I’m able to put onto the table [is] the fact that U.S. businesses are feeling that China is increasingly uninvestable because of [China’s] anti-espionage act, because of the lack of predictability and the environment, because of raids on U.S. businesses—[a meeting would] at least give [China] an opportunity to respond and make changes,” she said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Raimondo said she has told Beijing that “there can be no negotiation when it comes to matters of national security.” She added, “I have to use every tool in my toolbox to make sure our most sophisticated semiconductor chips, artificial intelligence models, never get into the hands of the Chinese military.”
On Monday, Ms. Raimondo took to X, formerly Twitter, to announce that she had just arrived in San Francisco “for a week full of IPEF and APEC meetings,” referring to the 14-member Indo–Pacific Economic Framework. The United States is hosting the third in-person IPEF ministerial meeting in San Francisco for two days, ending on Nov. 14.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Commerce Department for comment.
Working Groups
While in China, Ms. Raimondo and Mr. Wang agreed to set up a new commercial issues working group. The decision prompted House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) to issue a statement expressing concerns.“The Biden administration’s decision to join forces with the Chinese Communist Party to establish a working group on export controls and commercial issues with CCP officials is at best naive, but also dangerous,” Mr. McCaul wrote in August.
Mr. McCaul added, “The CCP steals U.S. intellectual property and hacks the emails of senior government officials—including Secretary Raimondo. The administration must stop treating the CCP as anything other than an adversary who will stop at nothing to harm our national security and spread its malign authoritarianism around the globe.”
In September, the Treasury Department announced the launch of an economic working group and a financial group under the direction of Ms. Yellan and Mr. He.
Following her meeting with Mr. He in San Francisco, Ms. Yellen announced that working groups met for the first time in recent weeks and had their second meeting on Nov. 9.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen delivers remarks at a news conference following the conclusion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) finance ministers' meeting at Moscone Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Nov. 13, 2023. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
At a press conference in San Francisco on Monday, Ms. Yellen said that the slowdown of the Chinese economy “presents a downside risk to the economic outlook that could affect, probably not so much the United States, but many APEC economies that have deep trade relations.”
The Chinese economy is beset by many problems, including a struggling property sector, mounting local government debts, disinflationary pressure, and low consumer confidence.
‘Productive Meeting’
Also on Monday, Washington and Beijing both spoke of the upcoming Biden-Xi meeting. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters, “All in all, we’re looking forward to a productive meeting.”Mr. Sullivan added, “President Biden has a long history with President Xi, and their conversations are direct, they’re straightforward, and President Biden believes there is no substitute for leader-to-leader, face-to-face diplomacy to manage this complex relationship.”
National security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington on Sept. 21, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times
‘3 Principles’
China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in a daily briefing that the two leaders “will have in-depth communication” on strategic issues important to both countries and “major issues concerning world peace and development.”Ms. Ning added, “China views and handles its relations with the US in accordance with the three principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation proposed by President Xi Jinping.”
Miles Yu, senior fellow and director of the China Center at Hudson Institute, said on Monday that the meanings behind China’s so-called three principles cannot be taken at the surface level. In an X post, he explained what each means.
“Mutual respect [means] stop badmouthing me for my acts of repression and misdeeds,” Mr. Yu wrote. “Peaceful coexistence [means] No need to resist me when I want to dominate the world with my own model of governance, at the expense of the existing global system of free trade and [international] law.”
And win-win cooperation means “China wins twice, U.S. loses twice,” Mr. Yu added.
Eva Fu contributed to this report.
