U.S. and China Pledge to Talk More to Avoid Worsening Tensions

The Biden administration has kept in place a set of tariffs imposed under President Donald Trump and confronted Beijing over what it sees as human rights abuses, unfair trade practices and threats to US national security.“ They’re talking in a way that maybe avoids unintended escalation of tensions,” Rachel Ziemba, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said before Wednesday’s meeting. There are also global issues, such as climate change or developing-nation debt, “that can’t be solved, can’t be addressed, without the US and China talking to each other.”

Yellen has called on China to step up its engagement with multilateral efforts to renegotiate the debts of some of the world’s poorest countries. Her stop in Zurich comes on her way to Africa, where she’ll visit Zambia, which is struggling to restructure $12.8 billion of external debt, one-third of which is owed to China.

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