Yellen calls for better relations with China amid tensions

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is set to call for more cooperative U.S.-China relations while stressing that the U.S. will protect its national security interests. 

“We seek a healthy economic relationship with China: one that fosters growth and innovation in both countries,” Yellen says in prepared remarks to be delivered at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, as shared by the Associated Press. The speech calls for “cooperation on the urgent global challenges of our day.”

“A growing China that plays by international rules is good for the United States and the world,” Yellen says. “Both countries can benefit from healthy competition in the economic sphere. But healthy economic competition — where both sides benefit — is only sustainable if that competition is fair.”

At the same time, “safeguarding certain technologies from the [People’s Republic of China’s] military and security apparatus is of vital national interest,” the Treasury secretary says. 

“We will secure our national security interests and those of our allies and partners, and we will protect human rights,” Yellen says. “We will clearly communicate to the PRC our concerns about its behavior.”

Tensions between Beijing and Washington are high, strained by the pandemic, the economy and other issues. Earlier this year, a Chinese surveillance balloon was discovered floating over U.S. military sites — and though China has asserted a neutral stance in Russia’s war on Ukraine, the two nations have held joint military exercises amid the conflict. 

The U.S. is also on alert to China’s actions in the Indo-Pacific surrounding Taiwan, the democratically governed island Beijing claims as its own — and to concerns that China could invade Taiwan. 

Chinese officials have been upset over U.S. trade sanctions as well. But on a visit to Tokyo Thursday, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the U.S. is not seeking to decouple its economy from China’s. 

The Associated Press contributed.