US will not allow flood of Chinese imports to destroy American companies as in past, Yellen says at end of China tripJanet Yellen stressed that companies in China must not provide material support for Russia’s war. Photograph: Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Imagessaid at the end of a weeklong visit to China. She urged Beijing to change its economic policies so that Chinese consumers and firms would buy more of the electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels that would otherwise be exported.
The treasury secretary insisted that Washington had no wish to decouple from China, adding that the two economies were so deeply integrated that a wholesale segregation would be disastrous for both. But she said that China’s weak household consumption, high business investment with and government investment in new industries posed a risk to the US and the rest of the world.
“China has long had excess savings, but investment in the real estate sector and government-funded infrastructure had absorbed much of it. Now, we are seeing an increase in business investment in a number of ‘new’ industries targeted by the industrial policy. That includes electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and solar,” she said.
“I stressed that companies, including those in , must not provide material support for Russia’s war and that they will face significant consequences if they do. And I reinforced that any banks that facilitate significant transactions that channel military or dual-use goods to Russia’s defence industrial base expose themselves to the risk of US sanctions.