by David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will visit China next week to hold talks with senior Chinese government officials along with U.S. business executives, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday.
Gina Raimondo last month expressed her desire to visit China, despite reports that the US Department of Commerce had been hacked by Chinese hackers.
The Commerce Secretary “looks forward to meaningful discussions” during her visit to Beijing and Shanghai from Aug. 27-30, the department said in a statement.
The Chinese government welcomed Gina Raimondo’s upcoming visit last week.
The latter said recently that she wanted to speak with her counterparts about “very serious concerns about the way China is targeting American tech companies” and about respect for intellectual property.
The visit follows that of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yallen, who visited China last month for four days.
China and the United States reached an agreement this month to double the number of weekly flights between the two countries, in a rare gesture of cooperation between the two superpowers.
Gina Raimondo is among the American executives who had their emails hacked this year by hackers located in China, according to Microsoft’s findings.
Earlier, the Chinese Embassy in Washington said identifying the source of these cyberattacks was complicated and warned against baseless accusations.
Gina Raimondo met Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in May in what was the first meeting between the two governments, following months of tensions.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Zhifan Liu, editing by Kate Entringer)
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