Janet Yellen the good cop ?

 

 U.S.-China: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Beijing on a visit that will include meetings with several high-level Chinese officials—including China’s No. 2 leader, Premier Li Qian—as part of a broader effort to ease tensions between Washington and Beijing. 

Our Take: Yellen’s visit is the latest high-level contact between the U.S. and China in recent months as both sides seek to reestablish dialogue and engagement amid growing tensions. Throughout her tenure as treasury secretary, Yellen has been playing the role of “good cop” in the Biden administration’s approach to China, most recently by emphasizing that the U.S. isn’t seeking to decouple its economy from China’s, but only to de-risk it by reducing U.S. exposure to vulnerabilities in strategic supply chains.

But given the array of U.S. measures seeking to limit China’s access to key technologies, as well as Washington’s pursuit of diplomatic and security partnerships in the Asia-Pacific with Beijing as the central focus, “de-risk” versus “decouple” may be a distinction without a difference for China.