Yellen urges Europeans to adopt a united approach against China

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that the United States and its Western allies must take a wary and united approach to check China and its business practices.

“We have a common interest in incentivizing China to refrain from economic practices that have disadvantaged all of us,” Yellen said in a speech to the Brussels Economic Forum, in Brussels, The Associated Press reported.

“These practices range from those affecting trade and investment to development and climate policies, to approaches to provide debt relief to countries facing unsustainable debt burdens,” she added.

A meeting of finance ministers for the Group of Seven leading economies is going to be held in Bonn, Germany, this week.

Yellen held a meeting on Tuesday with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen where she said they discussed “critical issues related to energy security, Ukraine’s economic needs, and continued coordination to impose sanctions on Russia.”

Yellen has criticized China’s financing practices in Africa and recently called on Beijing explicitly to end its relationship with Moscow.

“We have a set of common vulnerabilities that we should address,” Yellen said to her European audience.

“And China is more likely to respond favorably if it cannot play one of us off against the other,” she said. “The Biden administration believes that cooperation of this kind will be more effective than the unilateralism that we saw in the not-too-distant past.”

ME