Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Janet Yellen ap­pealed to Chi­na’s No. 2 leader not to let frus­tra­tion over U.S. curbs on ac­cess to proces­sor chips and oth­er tech­nol­o­gy dis­rupt eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion dur­ing a vis­it Fri­day aimed at im­prov­ing strained re­la­tions.

Meet­ing with Pre­mier Li Qiang, Yellen said Wash­ing­ton and Bei­jing have a du­ty to co­op­er­ate on is­sues that af­fect the world. She ap­pealed for “reg­u­lar chan­nels of com­mu­ni­ca­tion” at a time when re­la­tions are at their low­est in decades due to dis­putes over tech­nol­o­gy, se­cu­ri­ty and oth­er ir­ri­tants.

Yellen is one of sev­er­al se­nior U.S. of­fi­cials due to vis­it Bei­jing to en­cour­age Chi­nese lead­ers to re­vive in­ter­ac­tions be­tween gov­ern­ments of the two largest economies. Trea­sury of­fi­cials said ear­li­er she wouldn’t meet with Chi­nese leader Xi Jin­ping and no break­throughs were ex­pect­ed.

Yellen de­fend­ed “tar­get­ed ac­tions,” a ref­er­ence to curbs on Chi­nese ac­cess to ad­vanced proces­sor chips and oth­er tech­nol­o­gy, say­ing they are need­ed to pro­tect na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“You may dis­agree,” Yellen said. “But we should not al­low any dis­agree­ment to lead to mis­un­der­stand­ings that need­less­ly wors­en our bi­lat­er­al eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial re­la­tion­ships.”

Yellen ap­pealed for “healthy eco­nom­ic com­pe­ti­tion,” a ref­er­ence to com­plaints Bei­jing is step­ping up use of sub­si­dies and mar­ket bar­ri­ers to pro­tect its com­pa­nies.

“A fair set of rules will ben­e­fit both of our coun­tries,” Yellen said. “We al­so face im­por­tant glob­al chal­lenges where the Unit­ed States and Chi­na have a du­ty to both coun­tries but al­so to the world to co­op­er­ate.”

Li ex­pressed op­ti­mism that con­di­tions might im­prove but gave no in­di­ca­tion of pos­si­ble changes in Chi­nese poli­cies that have irked Wash­ing­ton and its trad­ing part­ners.

Re­fer­ring to a rain­bow that was spot­ted af­ter Yellen’s plane land­ed Thurs­day in rainy weath­er, Li said, “af­ter a round of wind and rain, we will def­i­nite­ly see more rain­bows.”

The Chi­nese fi­nance min­istry called Yellen’s vis­it a “con­crete mea­sure” to­ward car­ry­ing out an agree­ment by Xi and Pres­i­dent Joe Biden dur­ing a meet­ing in No­vem­ber to im­prove re­la­tions. It men­tioned no ini­tia­tives and called on Wash­ing­ton to make the first move.

“There will be no win­ners in trade wars or ‘de­cou­pling and bro­ken chains,’” the min­istry said in a state­ment. “We hope the Unit­ed States will take con­crete ac­tions to cre­ate a fa­vor­able en­vi­ron­ment for the healthy de­vel­op­ment of eco­nom­ic and trade re­la­tions.”

U.S. curbs on Chi­nese ac­cess to tech­nol­o­gy threat­en to de­lay or de­rail the rul­ing Com­mu­nist Par­ty’s ef­forts to de­vel­op tele­coms, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and oth­er tech­nolo­gies. Xi ac­cused Wash­ing­ton in March of try­ing to ham­per Chi­na’s de­vel­op­ment.

Bei­jing has been slow to re­tal­i­ate, pos­si­bly to avoid dis­rupt­ing its own tech in­dus­tries. But this week, the gov­ern­ment an­nounced un­spec­i­fied con­trols on ex­ports of gal­li­um and ger­ma­ni­um, met­als used in mak­ing semi­con­duc­tors and so­lar pan­els. That an­nounce­ment jolt­ed South Ko­rea and oth­er coun­tries that im­port from Chi­na.

Ear­li­er Fri­day, Yellen crit­i­cized Chi­na’s treat­ment of U.S. com­pa­nies dur­ing a meet­ing with busi­ness­peo­ple.

U.S. and oth­er for­eign com­pa­nies are un­easy about their sta­tus in Chi­na fol­low­ing raids on con­sult­ing firms, the ex­pan­sion of a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty law and calls by Xi and oth­er of­fi­cials for greater self-suf­fi­cien­cy.

“I am com­mu­ni­cat­ing the con­cerns that I’ve heard from the U.S. busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty — in­clud­ing Chi­na’s use of non-mar­ket tools like ex­pand­ed sub­si­dies for its state-owned en­ter­pris­es and do­mes­tic firms, and bar­ri­ers to mar­ket ac­cess for for­eign firms,” Yellen said, ac­cord­ing to a tran­script re­leased by her de­part­ment.

Yellen again re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions Wash­ing­ton is try­ing to de­cou­ple, or sep­a­rate the U.S. econ­o­my from Chi­na’s.

Busi­ness­peo­ple have warned the world’s two biggest economies might split in­to sep­a­rate mar­kets with in­com­pat­i­ble prod­ucts as Bei­jing and Wash­ing­ton tight­en trade con­trols and tell com­pa­nies to re­duce re­liance on each oth­er. They say that will hurt eco­nom­ic growth and in­no­va­tion.

″I have made clear that the Unit­ed States does not seek a whole­sale sep­a­ra­tion of our economies,” Yellen told the busi­ness­peo­ple. “A de­cou­pling of the world’s two largest economies would be desta­bi­liz­ing for the glob­al econ­o­my, and it would be vir­tu­al­ly im­pos­si­ble to un­der­take.”

Yellen de­fend­ed U.S. ex­port curbs as “premised on straight­for­ward na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­sid­er­a­tions and not un­der­tak­en to gain eco­nom­ic ad­van­tage over Chi­na.”

Al­so Fri­day, Yellen met with the out­go­ing gov­er­nor of Chi­na’s cen­tral bank, Yi Gang, and for­mer Vice Pre­mier Liu He, pre­vi­ous­ly her coun­ter­part in fi­nance talks, ac­cord­ing to the Trea­sury.

Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken, met with top leader Xi last month in the high­est-lev­el U.S. vis­it to Bei­jing in five years. The two agreed to sta­bi­lize re­la­tions but failed to agree on im­prov­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions be­tween their mil­i­taries.

The lat­est flare­up came af­ter Pres­i­dent Joe Biden re­ferred to Xi as a dic­ta­tor. The Chi­nese gov­ern­ment protest­ed, but Biden said his blunt state­ments are “just not some­thing I’m go­ing to change very much.”

Ties be­came es­pe­cial­ly testy af­ter a Chi­nese sur­veil­lance bal­loon flew over the Unit­ed States in Feb­ru­ary and was sub­se­quent­ly shot down.

Biden’s cli­mate en­voy, John Ker­ry, is sched­uled to be­come the next U.S. of­fi­cial to vis­it Chi­na, next week. Chi­na and the Unit­ed States are the world’s top emit­ters of cli­mate-chang­ing car­bon, mak­ing what­ev­er steps they take crit­i­cal.

The trip will be Ker­ry’s first to Chi­na since it broke off cli­mate dis­cus­sions with the U.S. in Au­gust in re­tal­i­a­tion for then-House Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi’s trav­el to Tai­wan. —BEI­JING (AP)

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Sto­ry by JOE MC­DON­ALD | As­so­ci­at­ed Press