U.S. officials to visit China for economic talks as trade tensions rise

WASHINGTON — A group of senior Biden administration officials is traveling to Shanghai this week for a round of high-level meetings intended to keep the economic relationship between the United States and China on stable footing amid mounting trade tensions between the two countries.

The talks will take place Thursday and Friday and are being convened through the U.S.-China Financial Working Group, which was created last year. Officials are expected to discuss ways to maintain economic and financial stability, capital markets and efforts to curb the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

Although communication between the United States and China has improved over the past year, the economic relationship remains fraught because of disagreements over industrial policy and China’s dominance over green energy technology. The Biden administration imposed new tariffs in May on an array of Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, solar cells, semiconductors and advanced batteries. The United States is also restricting American investments in Chinese sectors that policymakers believe could threaten national security.

The U.S. delegation, which is scheduled to depart Monday, is being led by Brent Neiman, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for international finance. He will be joined by officials from the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission. They are expected to meet with the People’s Bank of China’s deputy governor, Xuan Changneng, and other senior Chinese officials.

“We intend for this FWG meeting to include conversations on financial stability, issues related to cross-border data, lending and payments, private-sector efforts to advance transition finance, and concrete steps we can take to improve communication in the event of financial stress,” Neiman said before the trip, referring to the abbreviation for the financial working group.

American and Chinese financial regulators have been conducting financial shock exercises this year to coordinate their responses in the event of a crisis, such as a cyberattack or climate disaster, that might affect the international banking or insurance systems.

The Biden administration has been urging China to take action to prevent chemicals used to produce fentanyl from being exported to other countries and smuggled into the United States. There were signs of progress this month when China announced that it would put new restrictions on three of these chemicals, a move that the United States described as a “valuable step forward.”

Other economic issues between the two countries continue to be contentious. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pressed Chinese officials during her trip to China in April to stop flooding global markets with cheap clean-energy products, warning that its excess industrial capacity would distort global supply chains.

But after a meeting of Communist Party leaders last month, there was little indication that China would retreat from its investments in high-tech manufacturing or take major steps toward rebalancing its economy by bolstering domestic consumption.

The talks this week are the fifth meeting of the financial working group and will be the second time the officials have convened in China.

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