Biden administration should make real moves to maintain the upward momentum in Sino-US ties: China Daily editorial

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's three-day visit to China, which starts on Thursday, will hopefully help maintain the momentum of the two countries' efforts to prevent their relationship spiraling out of control.

Yellen will be the second Cabinet-level member of the Joe Biden administration to visit Beijing in a month following US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit in late June, during which the two sides agreed on the need to stabilize bilateral ties.

She will reportedly meet with her Chinese counterpart and other senior officials, with the intention of discussing ways to manage bilateral economic relations and exploring areas where China and the US can "work together to address global challenges".

Yellen has long called for a healthy economic relationship with China and supported efforts by the two countries to strengthen dialogue and cooperation. In her testimony before Congress in April, she spoke of the importance of maintaining ties with China and said that "decoupling would be a big mistake" while stressing it would be "disastrous" to cease trading with China. In early June, she told a group of US business leaders that it is critical for the US to work with China on specific and urgent global challenges.

The recent positive developments in bilateral ties have taken place after an upturn in ties was disrupted in February due to the so-called China "spy balloon" incident.

Although it is too early to predict what fruits Yellen's visit may yield, it has raised hopes that the two sides may at least start to address some of the issues that have impeded the healthy development of Sino-US relations and help create a conducive atmosphere for future mooted talks with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on tariffs and sanctions on Chinese tech companies. Yellen herself has questioned the efficacy of such tariffs, which she acknowledges have harmed US consumers. Also, given the US is in urgent need of buyers to purchase US government bonds, China may offer a helping hand, as the continuous improvement in China-US relations is in the interests of both countries.

The series of visits by senior US officials are seen as critical to paving the way for a proposed meeting between the leaders of the two countries at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in San Francisco in November.

Washington's confrontational approaches targeting China, such as implying restrictive controls on advanced chips and investment into the Chinese high-tech sector, do not serve that purpose. It is to be hoped that concrete actions will be forthcoming as an outcome of the visits to back up any conciliatory words from the US side.