US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo arrives for a meeting with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, at the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing, Monday, August 28, 2023.
Andy Wong | Pool | via Reuters
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with Chinese officials during a visit to Beijing and Shanghai this week, and she said on Sunday that the trip helped establish open lines of communication between the two countries.
Raimondo is the fourth high-level US official to visit China this summer, but he is the first US Commerce secretary to visit the country in five years — a period in which bilateral relations have become increasingly tense. .
“We are in fierce competition with China on every level, and anyone who tells you otherwise is naive,” Raimondo told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “All that being said, we need to manage this competition. Conflict is in no one’s interest.”
Raimondo said a lack of communication between the US and China could exacerbate tensions and lead to misunderstandings, so structured discussions are key to addressing commercial issues that arise.
The Commerce secretary’s trip to China follows recent visits by US special envoy for climate John Kerry, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. But Raimondo’s visit was called into question after Chinese hackers breached his emails last summer.
“They did hack me, which was unappreciated, to say the least. I brought it up clearly, put it on the table,” she said Sunday. “Didn’t pull any punches.”
Raimondo also raised concerns about national security, US manufacturing and US business, he said.
In the fall of 2022, the Bureau of Industry and Security of the US Department of Commerce announced new export controls that limit the ability of Chinese enterprises to buy some advanced semiconductors from American suppliers.
Raimondo said on Sunday that export controls are about national security, not about gaining an economic advantage. He added that the US will remain as hard-line as possible on its most advanced technology.
“We’re not going to sell the most sophisticated American chips to China that they want for their military capacity,” Raimondo said. “But I want to be clear, we still continue to sell billions of dollars of chips a year in China, because most of the chips produced are not the leading edge, cutting edge as I say.”
He said that although export controls present a nuanced and complex policy, the sale of some chips in China will ultimately generate revenue for American businesses to invest in further research and development.
