Yellen launches contentious meetings on Chinese excess production threat

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday launched four days of talks with senior Chinese officials expected to focus heavily on spillovers from China’s excess manufacturing capacity and an increasingly challenging business climate for U.S. firms.
Yellen will meet with Guangdong Province Governor Wang Weizhong and Vice Premier He Lifeng in a continuation of U.S.-China economic relations. But these talks are likely to be more contentious than past engagements due to the more difficult subject matter.
Yellen and other Biden administration officials are growing increasingly concerned about China’s overproduction of electric vehicles, solar panels, semiconductors and other goods that are flooding into global markets in the face of a demand slump at home. She plans to argue that this is not healthy for China and is hurting producers in other countries.
Yellen told Wang that she will emphasise the need for a “level playing field” for U.S. workers and firms, and that Washington and Beijing must maintain open and direct communications on areas where they disagree.