US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo met with China Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao in Beijing on August 28 to advance US commercial and strategic interests is interpreted more as a "reality check" in the eyes of many China experts. Although Raimondo and her Chinese counterpart issued a mutual statement to ensure more communications in the future, China, a high-context culture in which many words are not spoken, has expressed its own messages in ways that may not be understood by the West.
Raimondo's visit to Beijing and Shanghai includes a meeting with some American Chambers of Commerce (AmCham) members. Unfair market access has been the top complaint voiced by AmCham members in China for years. Yet China remains an important market for American tech companies such as Apple Inc., NVIDIA, AMD, Texas Instrument (TI), Broadcom, Qualcomm, Intel, etc.
She emphasized the Biden Administration's commitment to taking actions necessary to protect US national security and reiterated the Administration's "small yard, high fence" approach, underscoring that export controls are narrowly targeted at technologies that have clear national security or human rights impacts and are "not about containing China's economic growth".
A US Department of Commerce official press release said Raimondo discussed "opportunities to promote economic exchange where it aligns with US interests and values" without detailing the discussion, but said Raimondo underscored the importance of leveling the playing field for US workers and businesses and ensuring the fair and transparent treatment of US companies in China. In other words, her visit was all about US interests.
Nevertheless, Wang Wentao, in a separate press release by China's Ministry of Commerce, criticized the US 301 tariffs on China, semiconductor policy, two-way investment restrictions, discriminatory subsidies, sanctions against Chinese enterprises, and other serious concerns. Wang said that generalized national security is not conducive to normal economic and trade exchanges, and the implementation of unilateral and protectionist measures is not in line with market rules and the principle of fair competition, and will only harm the security and stability of the global industrial chain supply chain. "The US side has repeatedly said that it does not seek to decouple from the Chinese side, we hope that the US will put its stance into practice," said Wang.
However, the fact that Raimondo is the fourth senior American official to visit China in a row -- following Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Special Envoy John Kerry, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen -- without a reciprocal visit by a senior Chinese official to America, is already raising some eyebrows.
"This is a clear sign of weakness for the United States and a trend we haven't seen for decades," commented Isaac Stone Fish, CEO of Strategy Risks, on Linkedin. The political gesture of China not sending reciprocal visits to America has a cultural context. For centuries, China's emperors were the ones to receive foreign envoys paying tributes to them. A good example is Emperor Qianlong's view of the Macartney Mission, the first British diplomatic mission to China, as asking for favors, and he rejected all requests. Not sending out reciprocal envoys also symbolizes China as the superior country over the US, a way for Xi to seek support from nationalistic patriots.
In fact, China's leader Xi Jinping just led an envoy to participate in the 2023 BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, which had "BRICS common currency" as a theme of the meeting. Xi Jinping did not comment on having a common BRICS currency but promoted "the reform of the international financial and monetary system", long regarded as a move to decrease the influence of the US and the dollar, in a speech during the summit.
The spell-out action plans
Raimondo emphasized the importance of ensuring open lines of communication between the United States and China and took concrete steps to deliver on that goal. The press release said Raimondo and Minister Wang agreed to:
1. Establish a new commercial issues working group, a consultation mechanism involving US and PRC government officials and private sector representatives to seek solutions on trade and investment issues and to advance U.S. commercial interests in China. They agreed that the working group will meet twice annually at the Vice Minister level, with the U.S. hosting the first meeting in early 2024.
2. Launch the export control enforcement information exchange, which will serve as a platform to reduce misunderstanding of US national security policies. The first in-person meeting will occur at the Assistant Secretary level at the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing on Tuesday, August 29.
3. Convene subject matter experts from both sides to hold technical discussions regarding strengthening the protection of trade secrets and confidential business information during administrative licensing proceedings.
4. Communicate regularly at the Secretary and Minister level about commercial and economic issues and meet in person at least once annually.
