US treasury secretary Janet Yellen has appealed to China for cooperation on climate change and other global challenges and not to let disagreements about trade and other matters derail relations.
In a meeting with her Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, Ms Yellen defended US restrictions on technology exports that upset Beijing.
She said the two governments should not let such disagreements disrupt thriving economic and financial relations.
″We also face important global challenges, such as debt distress in emerging markets and developing countries and climate change,” Ms Yellen said. “We have a duty to both our own economies and to other countries to cooperate.”
Ms Yellen is one of a series of US officials who are due to visit Beijing as part of efforts to revive relations that are at their lowest level in decades due to disputes over technology, security and Taiwan among other issues.
Ms Yellen has received a warm welcome from leaders including Premier Li Qiang, the number two figure in the ruling Communist Party, though they gave no sign they will change policies that irk Washington and other governments.
Treasury officials said the goal of the trip was to encourage communication and no agreements on big disputes were expected. They said Ms Yellen was not scheduled to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Beijing broke off climate discussions with Washington last August in retaliation for a visit by then-speaker Nancy Pelosi of the House of Representatives to Taiwan, the self-ruled island democracy claimed by China as part of its territory.
President Joe Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry is due to become the next senior US official to visit China next week.
China and the United States are the world’s top emitters of climate-changing carbon.
Mr He, who is Mr Xi’s top economic adviser and the chief Chinese envoy to the United States on trade and financial issues, said the two governments should return to an agreement reached last November by Mr Biden and Mr Xi to improve relations.
″The two countries should act with a sense of responsibility for history, for the people and for the world,” the vice premier said.
He added that the United States should ”adopt a rational and pragmatic attitude and work with China to stay committed to the common understandings” set out by Mr Xi and Mr Biden.
China, which has lent billions of dollars to governments in Asia and Africa under Mr Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative to build ports and other infrastructure, signed on an agreement last month to reduce the debts of Zambia in southern Africa. Treasury officials earlier pointed to that as an area where cooperation produced results.
Also on Saturday, Mr Yellen met the incoming governor of China’s central bank, Pan Gongsheng, and people who work in China’s climate-related finance industry.
Ms Yellen repeated her appeal for “healthy economic cooperation”, a reference to complaints that Beijing violates its free-trade commitments by subsidising and shielding its companies from competition.
