WASHINGTON —
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will start a four-day visit to China this weekend. The announcement came shortly after the Biden administration issued an executive order restricting certain U.S. investments in China.
The Department of Commerce said on Tuesday that Raimondo will visit Beijing and Shanghai from August 27 to 30 and meet with senior Chinese government officials and American business leaders.
The trip is intended to deepen communication between the U.S. and China on issues relating to the U.S.-China commercial relationship, challenges faced by U.S. businesses, and areas for potential cooperation, according to a press release from the Commerce Department.
Analysts said that as China's economy may be in long-term trouble, Beijing hopes to use Raimondo's visit to reverse the impression that China is no longer friendly to foreign companies. But the trip may not bring any breakthrough.
Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told VOA that Beijing welcomes Raimondo's visit because of her influence on several economic and trade issues that China cares about.
"Secretary Raimondo is a pretty big player in all transactions involving either trade in goods or services, electronic services of various kinds, technology flows and investment flows in both directions," Hufbauer said.
"My guess is that the Chinese authorities will be interested and quiz her quite closely about what limits she sees on these restrictions that are being put in place, what kind of flows of goods, of technology, of investment are still permitted by the U.S., and what are basically either prohibited or very closely scrutinized."
Earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order banning U.S. investments in sensitive technologies in China, aiming to restrict China's ability to develop next-generation military and surveillance technologies.
However, right after Raimondo's trip was announced, the U.S. government unexpectedly removed 27 Chinese companies and institutions from the "Unverified List" of sanctioned commercial entities, which was widely seen as a goodwill gesture from Washington to Beijing.
The 27 Chinese entities include lithium battery material maker Guangdong Guanghua Technology and sensor maker Nanjing Gaohua Technology.
China's Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday that the move is beneficial to the resumption of normal trade between companies of the two countries and is in line with the common interests of both sides.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry also visited China this year. These meetings could pave the way for Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the APEC summit in the U.S. and meet with Biden this fall.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Raimondo's trip is "an encapsulation of the approach that the Biden administration is taking, where we are engaged in an intense competition with the PRC, but intense competition requires intense diplomacy to manage that competition so that it doesn't tip over into conflict.
"Secretary Raimondo will carry with her the message that the United States is not seeking to decouple from China, but rather to de-risk, and that means protecting our national security and ensuring resilient supply chains alongside our allies and partners while we continue our economic relationship and our trade relationship," Sullivan said in a press briefing this week.
Raimondo is expected to meet Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, among other economic policymakers.
Clark Packard, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, told VOA he expects Raimondo to bring up U.S. concerns about recent Chinese restrictions on the export of some critical minerals, seen as retaliation for the American measures.
"I don't know if that falls on deaf ears because China would argue, 'We weren't going to move forward with this, but this is in response to your export controls on semiconductors and advanced computing,'" said Packard. "I don't know how well that will be received, but again, I think it's positive that the two sides talk. My hope is it's not just an airing of the grievances on both sides because, while I think it's important to engage, you do want to see some movements."
Packard said he doesn't expect Raimondo's trip to make any substantive breakthroughs on key issues, partly because the Biden administration is "getting a lot of pressure from Congress to continue to ratchet up tensions."