Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao will travel to the US next week to meet with US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, according to reports the Chinese embassy in Washington.
Wang will address «respective concerns» over economic and trade relations between the two nations in his talks with US officials, embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said on Thursday. He will also attend a meeting of the trade ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation during his trip.
In recent years, top US and Chinese trade officials have rarely met. Wang last I talk to Raymond in 2021 on an introductory call, and he talked to tai on the sidelines of last year’s APEC meeting.
Tensions between the two superpowers have escalated under the Biden and Trump administrations, with relations in recent months further strained by the 200-foot-tall Chinese airship, which the US called a spy balloon designed to eavesdrop.
Still, the US and China remain important trading partners. In 2022, bilateral trade reached an all-time high of nearly $760 billion, according to the embassy report.
«This fully demonstrates the strong complementarity between the two countries and the resilience of the economic and trade relationship,» Liu said. «This bilateral relationship cannot be simplistically defined as ‘competition’.»
Representatives for Raimondo and Tai did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The trade talks expected next week come after NBC News reported last month that a communication breakdown between Washington and Beijing is raising the risk of a crisis or unwanted conflict between the two nations.