The next confrontation between China and the United States is coming, and the US wants to hear the answers from these five major questions.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Bescent is going to contact China again. According to the US, the time is set for next week, and the location is Madrid, Spain.
[U.S. Treasury Secretary Becent is about to contact China]
Now, nearly a month and a half have passed since the Sino-US economic and trade talks in Stockholm, Sweden. It should be said that it is time for both sides to continue to contact.
Because one of the participants was Becente, it is easy for us to come to a conclusion that economic and trade issues must be the focus of this round of Sino-US contacts.
This is indeed the case. However, according to the US Treasury Department, economic and trade are only part of this talks between China and the United States. There are at least five major problems that Bescent wants to confirm with China in person.
The first one is of course a trade issue.
At the Stockholm talks at the end of July, China and the United States agreed to extend the tariff moratorium by another 90 days. At the same time, the outside world noticed that compared with the previous contacts, the results of the Stockholm talks are not a breakthrough.
This is interpreted as the deep interests of both sides as the negotiations enter the deep waters. At this point, many things are of course extremely anxious.
[Bester will contact China in Madrid]
Therefore, delaying the tariff suspension period is a way that both parties can accept.
But it is not a matter of delaying it like this. Both China and the United States hope to achieve a definite and binding result, so as to minimize the instability of the situation and eliminate the negative impact.
It is not difficult to imagine that on trade issues, the US will definitely bring out their rhetoric, and China's attitude to safeguard its own national interests will not change. Negotiations between the two sides on trade issues will not be easy.
However, there has been a variable recently, which may be beneficial to China.
At the end of last month, the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled several tariff violations by the Trump administration, and Trump refused to accept the result and filed an appeal.
This situation made Becente very anxious. He warned that if the Trump administration eventually loses the case, the Treasury Department will have to refund half of the tariffs imposed after Trump took office, which would be a "disaster."
[Trump encountered some trouble in tariff war]
The Trump administration faces this problem that may cause them to fall into a passive position when playing with other countries.
The second question that Bescent wants to talk to China is economy.
In fact, economy and trade are often associated, but they cannot be equal. In a sense, the economy will cover a wider range.
About this issue, perhaps it can be combined with some of Becente's previous remarks. He once accused China of being the "most unbalanced" and "most uneven" economy in the world.
He said nonsense that China needs to "rebalance" these issues.
So it can be foreseen that in the next Madrid talks, Besent will most likely say these words again.
【China and the United States will discuss economic and trade issues at the talks】
In addition, considering that the Trump administration is planning to impose higher tariffs on China on the grounds that "China buys Russian oil." According to the logic of the United States, this can force China to exert its influence on Russia and accelerate the ceasefire in Russia and Ukraine.
In this way, Becente may also add this matter to the agenda.
The third problem is national security.
For this situation, we can actually look at it from a sentence that China has mentioned many times in recent years, namely "the United States generalizes the concept of national security."
Objectively speaking, the term national security does involve a wide range of scope, but not everything can be mentioned.
One of the current practices of the United States is to turn "endangering US national security" into a pocket crime, put everything you want to put in, especially politicizing and weaponizing science and technology, economic and trade issues, so as to suppress China.
[The Trump administration is also generalizing the concept of national security]
As the US Treasury Secretary, Becent went to China to talk about "national security" and must look for perspectives from economic and trade issues.
The next two questions are more specific, namely TikTok and the cooperation in combating money laundering.
After the fierce game at the end of last year and early this year, events related to TikTok seem to have subsided, but in fact, things are not over.
According to a previous executive order by Trump, the deadline for TikTok to "ban if you don't sell it" was extended to September 17, which was also the third time Trump pressed the "pause button" since he took office.
However, the US side will not hope to just drag it on, they are definitely in a hurry to have a result. In this matter, there is actually no essential difference between Trump and the previous Biden administration.
[In some things, there is no essential difference between Trump and Biden administration]
But, who claims to be a "trading expert", may want to maximize the interests of the United States through negotiations.
As for anti-money laundering cooperation, it is considered a decision that is beneficial to both China and the United States. Last year, then-US Treasury Secretary Yellen had communicated with China on this matter many times, hoping to plug loopholes in the financial system through more powerful law enforcement actions.
Overall, the new round of Sino-US talks to be held in Madrid will still coexist with game and cooperation.
At the same time, this arrangement can be combined with other recent communications between China and the United States. Recently, US Secretary of Defense Hegsey and Secretary of State Rubio had phone calls with the Chinese Secretary of Defense and Foreign Minister respectively.
Some analysts believe that China and the United States have conducted this series of high-level communications, which may be paving the way for the subsequent more heavyweight talks. Many people have set their sights on the upcoming APEC leaders’ informal meeting to be held in South Korea.
From this point, the next talks between the US Treasury Secretary and China may also be one of the preparations made by both sides for higher-level contact.
