Yellen in China; Two new US-China exchange mechanisms; Lavrov in Beijing; Sierra Madre and US-Japan-Philippines Trilateral
Summary of today’s Essential Eight:
Yellen in China - US Treasury Secretary Yellen had what appears to have been a cordial visit with her PRC hosts and left with two new “exchange” mechanisms (don’t call them dialogues…) on “Balanced Growth in the Domestic and Global Economies” and “Joint Treasury-PBOC Cooperation and Exchange on Anti-Money Laundering”. Her criticisms about overcapacity and the PRC economic model make sense, except for the fact that it is not 2006 or 2010 and she is asking them to change their fundamental political economic model. She is not the first US official to do so. President Trump and his team declared a phase one victory in the trade war in part because they realized it was impossible for the PRC to agree to the structural changes they were requesting, so they took the domestic political victory they could get, signed a phase one agreement that the PRC did not fully implement, and punted on phase two. And since then the issues of concern to the US and other go…