WASHINGTON -- The U.S. and China kicked off a two-day strategic and economic dialogue here Tuesday, where they are expected to hold heated exchanges on issues ranging from free trade to cyber attacks and security.
The U.S. is being represented by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. China's delegates are State Councillor Yang Jiechi and Vice Premier Wang Yang. The dialogue is split into separate tracks for economic and strategic matters. A joint statement will be issued Wednesday, covering results of the talks.
The U.S. has argued that China's island building in the disputed Spratly Islands is a destabilizing influence in the South China Sea and has called on Beijing to halt immediately. During his remarks at the start of the talks, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden asserted that open and protected sea lanes are more important than ever. China is expected to defend the project as within its sovereignty and push Washington to stop interfering.
Biden said the U.S. does not fear the rise of China but called on Beijing to show a sense of responsibility as a global power. Kerry said he hopes to discuss the need to ease tensions in the South China Sea and East China Sea.
Yang has responded that China strongly supports freedom of the seas, while Wang has said that both sides will pay a price if the two countries fight and that dialogue is a better option.
Friction between Beijing and Washington over territorial and other disputes has become unavoidable as China is growing more confident in its status as a global heavyweight. With President Xi Jinping slated to visit the U.S. in September, the two sides are searching for ways to cooperate in areas where they can both readily benefit, including the economy, trade and finance.
In his opening remarks, Lew expressed his hopes for progress on reforms aimed at encouraging stable growth. "We support China's economic reform agenda, including efforts to allow the market to play a more decisive role in the economy and rely more on consumption to drive China's economic growth," he said.
He also indicated his interest in speeding up negotiations on a trade agreement with China. "We will also discuss candidly -- and work to make progress on -- areas of concern such as ... barriers to open trade and investment, and exchange rate reform," he said.
Beijing has shown it is willing to work on reforms to open up its financial system. It aims to have the yuan added this year to the basket of currencies used to determine the value of special drawing rights, a reserve asset created by the International Monetary Fund. To make the yuan more freely usable, China plans to relax regulations on cross-border capital transactions using the currency.
The tug of war over the Asian economic sphere is heating up. As negotiations founder over the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, which excludes China, Beijing has officially signed free trade agreements with nearby industrialized countries, including South Korea and Australia. And in international finance, once the sole domain of the U.S., China is coming closer to setting up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
With the interests of the two giants clashing in a broader range of areas, they are going to great lengths to show their cooperation on climate change and other international issues. Beijing and Washington will be using the dialogue to try to block each other while confirming where they differ in order to limit the risk of friction and clashes.
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