US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called today from Beijing for “healthy competition” between the United States and China, a country from which the US is “almost impossible” to disengage, despite trade tensions between the two largest world powers.

“We want healthy economic competition, not the law of the strongest, with a fair set of rules that can benefit both countries,” Yellen said during a meeting in Beijing with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who is in country specifically responsible for economic matters.

The finance minister, who is making her first visit to China since taking office in 2021, also called for the “disagreements” to “not unnecessarily worsen” relations between the two countries.

These statements come as US political officials have been calling for months to reduce Washington’s dependence on the giant Asian country, amid rising geopolitical tensions.

Yellen asked for prudence on this point. “A decoupling of the world’s two largest economies would be destabilizing for the global economy,” he warned.

Her visit comes a few weeks after that of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, as the Biden administration looks to restore direct contacts with Beijing after three years of almost total isolation from China due to the health crisis.

“In the Biden administration, Mrs. Yellen seems to be more realistic” than others, Tao Wenzhao, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said to AFP.

“Her visit is welcome and from a practical point of view it is expected that it will allow the two parties to get closer to each other,” he estimates.

“I think we are reshaping Sino-US relations,” Tao added.

This morning, the US Treasury secretary already had a “real discussion” with her former counterpart, former Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, and outgoing Chinese central bank governor Yi Gang, according to a Treasury official.

“They discussed the global economic outlook and those of the US and China respectively,” the source added.