The United States is determined to deepen bilateral engagement with the People’s Republic of China, including in ways that advance U.S. commercial and strategic interests. Toward that end, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo recently met in Beijing and Shanghai with several high-level PRC officials, including her direct counterpart, PRC Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao.
Secretary Raimondo called the meetings “productive,” “candid,” and “constructive.”
“I was able to explain our policies and our approach to China, and I heard from my Chinese counterparts,” she said. “I was able to explain clearly that we will protect what we must and promote what we can. That means national security is non-negotiable, but despite that, there is plenty of business we can do.”
Business relationships between the United States and the PRC are to be encouraged, said Secretary Raimondo, but so is “advocating for U.S businesses and workers when the playing field is unfair.”
“I raised issues like subsidies, raids on U.S. firms, and intellectual property theft. Businesses need a predictable regulatory environment. We are not returning to the days when we had dialogue for dialogue’s sake, but shutting down communication and decoupling services is neither in our economic or national security goals,” she said.
Secretary Raimondo said she and PRC Minister Wang created new channels of communication “that will allow us to raise and ideally resolve issues.” The first is a consultation mechanism involving U.S. and PRC government officials and private sector representatives to seek solutions on trade and investment issues.
The second channel is an export control enforcement information exchange, a platform to reduce misunderstandings over U.S. national security policies. “That’s not a working group on export controls to seek concessions,” said Secretary Raimondo, “but it is an opportunity to share information and increase transparency.”
Additionally, the two countries will convene subject matter experts from both sides to hold technical discussions on how to protect trade secrets and international property. And they agreed to communicate regularly at the Secretary and Minister levels and to meet in person at least once annually.
“The biggest achievement” of her visit to China, said Secretary Raimondo, “was just to start regular communication ... You can’t solve any problems without first communicating,” she declared. “And now we have to launch these different mechanisms, then see what problems we might be able to solve.”
