Gina Raimondo has an impressive résumé. Lawyer. Rhodes scholar. Venture capitalist. The first female governor of Rhode Island. And now, as US Commerce Secretary, she is getting thrown into the deep end of high-level global diplomacy.
Here's the deal: Raimondo arrived in China on Sunday for the start of a four-day marathon of meetings with both American business leaders and Chinese government officials. While she's the fourth Biden administration official to visit China in the past few months — Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and climate envoy John Kerry also made trips — her mission is an especially complex one.
Raimondo is trying to pull off two somewhat contradictory missions:
1️⃣ Strengthen US business ties with China, a vital market that has become increasingly hostile toward foreign corporations operating within its borders.
2️⃣ Defend her department's strict trade restrictions aimed at protecting US national security, which Beijing happens to be really ticked off about at the moment.
So far, at least, there are some signs of progress.
Raimondo said Monday that she and her counterpart, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, had four hours of "very open" discussions and came away with an agreement to create a "commercial issues working group" — basically a twice-a-year gab sesh among American and Chinese officials to try to work through their issues.
That may seem small, but agreeing to talk more openly is a huge step in the context of US-China diplomacy at the moment.
Some background: The US-China relationship was already tense when, in October last year, Washington banned Chinese companies from buying certain American-made semiconductors and chip-making equipment, citing national security concerns. Those chips, which can't be obtained elsewhere, are crucial for advanced weapons systems that Washington doesn't want in the hands of the Chinese military. The US then persuaded European and Japanese chipmakers to impose similar curbs.
And thennnnnn in February the US shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina, ushering in a full-blown diplomatic crisis. And despite all the visits from Biden's Cabinet members, there hasn't been much thawing of those frozen ties.
What now?
Raimondo has some extra leverage right now because of the dire state of China's economy, and she can use that to secure better market access for American companies. She's also expected to get an earful from Beijing reps over her department's export controls, my colleague Laura He writes.
"Beijing's principle objective will be securing a reprieve, however temporary, from the onslaught of US export controls and other restrictions being levied on China's economy," said Craig Singleton, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.
Ultimately, the US wants a stable Chinese economy almost as much as Beijing does. American companies have huge manufacturing networks in China, and they rely on sales to Chinese consumers. The US imports more from China than any other country. Last year, even with a lingering trade war, trade in goods between the two countries hit an all-time high of $691 billion.
READ MORE:
📉 Shares of Evergrande Group, the deeply indebted Chinese real estate developer, plunged more than 70% Monday when it resumed trading following a 17-month suspension.
💸 China announced a series of moves to restore investor confidence, including cutting a tax on stock trading for the first time since 2008. The news briefly jolted Chinese stocks, but it wasn't enough to shake investors' concerns about the country's real estate crisis and slowing growth.
Comments
Post a Comment