White House says Yellen, Raimondo in China talks

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White House says Yellen, Raimondo in China talks

The National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Monday that a potential trip to China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was in the works.

The possibility of high-level talks would come as relations between the world's two largest economies have plummeted since the U.S. military shot down a Chinese spy balloon after it had traversed North America last month. The incident caused U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a trip to China.

Kirby said there was no scheduled talks between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. He stressed the need to keep lines of communication open, especially now when tensions are so high.

We are talking to the People's Republic of China right now about a potential visit by Secretary Yellen and Secretary Raimondo to talk about economic issues, Kirby said. Keep those lines of communication open is important. Kirby said that the possibility of Blinken visiting China was not off the table.

That visit was postponed, it wasn't canceled, he said. We want to bring Secretary Blinken back to Beijing. Secretary Yellen has been in the headlines in the last few days after Silicon Valley Bank in California and Signature Bank in New York.

The Treasury Secretary was grilled by GOP lawmakers last week about the decision to protect uninsured money at the two failed regional banks, a move that many likened to a bailout. At a Capitol hearing, Yellen told senators that the U.S. banking system remains sound and Americans can feel confident about the safety of their deposits.

Yellen said at the hearing that the US banking system could allow for Chinese Communist Party-linked CCP Silicon Valley Bank depositors to be made whole. Asked if regional banks would have to pay a special assessment to make Chinese investors whole in Silicon Valley Bank, the secretary said, "Uninsured investors will be made whole in that bank, but I don't believe there is any legal basis to discriminate among uninsured depositors."