Yellen Seeks Unity With European, Urges Them To Dump China

Even as Western allies grapple with how to counter Russia’s assault on Ukraine, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Tuesday that they also must take a wary and united approach to checking China and its business practices, Fatima Hussein reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen share a casual moment.

“We have a common interest in incentivizing China to refrain from economic practices that have disadvantaged all of us,” Yellen said in a speech to the Brussels Economic Forum.

Yellen was in Brussels ahead of a meeting of finance ministers for the Group of Seven (G7) leading economies in Bonn, Germany. She also met Tuesday with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

"These practices range from those affecting trade and investment to development and climate policies, to approaches to provide debt relief to countries facing unsustainable debt burdens,” she added. Yellen has spoken at length about China’s financing practices in Africa, which has seen a massive influx of Chinese investment.

She has recently called on China explicitly to end its relationship with Russia.

“We have a set of common vulnerabilities that we should address,” Yellen said to her European audience. “And China is more likely to respond favorably if it cannot play one of us off against the other,” she said.

“The Biden administration believes that cooperation of this kind will be more effective than the unilateralism that we saw in the not-too-distant past.”

Yellen’s visit to Europe — she spent time in Poland before her stop in Brussels — is meant to address the effects of the war in Ukraine, an international tax plan she negotiated with more than 130 countries last year, and an energy crisis contributing to high inflation worldwide.

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