US-China decoupling? Washington calls it ‘de-risking’, but Beijing blasts ‘zero-sum cold war mindset’
- Reassurances from US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in China this week may have fallen on deaf ears as tech-containment efforts and supply-chain shifts persist
- China’s ministries of commerce and foreign affairs both had words for Washington after Raimondo’s departure
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US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo calls for further engagement with Beijing following China visit
Washington’s repeated calls for “de-risking, not decoupling” from China’s economy, has been a hard sell to Chinese leaders, analysts say after the two countries set up a mechanism this week to assess how they can jointly tackle sensitive trade and tech curbs in the coming months.
Meanwhile, she insisted that the US would not negotiate in matters of national security, after Beijing and Washington debuted an information exchange mechanism on export controls – a move not expected to substantially ease export controls, as Beijing desires.
“I was very clear that, for all of our controls … we’re not interested in changing them and we are not interested in negotiating them,” she said on Wednesday in Shanghai.
On Friday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had some strong words on the matter, at a regular press conference. It accused the US of comprehensively “containing” China through wars of tariffs, trade, tech, chips and rules.