• Exclusive: China took part in leaders“ AI meeting even though UK did not acknowledge
• US airs concerns to China about “dangerous and unlawful“ South China Sea actions
• Eyeing China, Biden and Latam leaders tighten economic bonds
• Blockbuster show on Genghis Khan opens in France after row with China
• As Australian leader heads to China, a critical (minerals) issue looms
• With an eye toward China, Biden to meet Latin leaders on economics, migration
• China warms to U.S. chipmaker Micron, as tensions with Washington ease
• [World] Australia and China eye new ways to heal old wounds
• China iPhone sales strong, Apple tells investors as Huawei threat looms
• Yellen: Indo-Pacific allies should not have to choose between US, China

Exclusive: China took part in leaders“ AI meeting even though UK did not acknowledge

https://reuters.com/article/ai-britain-summit-china-exclusive/exclusive-china-took-part-in-leaders-ai-meeting-even-though-uk-did-not-acknowledge-idUSKBN31Y1I4

China said it attended a top-level ministerial meeting at the UK AI Safety Summit on Thursday, despite not being listed by Britain among the "like-minded" participants and not featuring in official handshakes or the family photograph.

China's absence sparked questions because it participated in the first day of the two-day summit on the safety of "frontier" artificial intelligence, and Britain declined to say why Beijing was not among those joining the second day's senior meeting.

China's delegate to the meeting, Vice Minister of Science and Technology Wu Zhaohui, was present on Thursday, his ministry said on Friday. China's participation in the second-day ministerial meeting has not been previously reported.

"Please contact the British sponsoring government department for the specific arrangements and outcomes of the meeting," the Chinese ministry said when asked why Wu had not featured in the public events on Thursday.

In one possible reason for not advertising the Chinese presence, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday that "there are some sessions where we have like-minded countries working together, so it might not be appropriate for China to join".

Among other reasons speculated was that Britain wanted to present a united front and China did not back Thursday's joint agreement.

The Chinese technology ministry declined to say why China did not agree to the proposal, which was about AI model testing.

Diplomatic protocol may have played a part too because Wu was junior to other participants on the second day of the conference in Bletchley Park, southern England.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak chaired Thursday's meeting that comprised "a small group of like-minded senior representatives from governments around the world", Britain said, including the U.S. vice president and the EC president.

Some British lawmakers had criticised China's participation in the inaugural AI summit. They questioned whether Beijing, which the West sees as a technological rival and military threat, should be included in meetings about sensitive technology.

Wu attended the first day of the summit on Wednesday when China, the United States, European Union and 26 other countries agreed to share a common approach to identifying AI risks and ways to mitigate them, called the Bletchley Declaration.

He did not feature in any public events on the second day, leading one journalist to ask Sunak at a news conference why China had been excluded from the final day.

Sunak did not address the question directly, but said he achieved the outcome he wanted, with China engaged in the process.

A British government spokesperson declined to comment on the participation of individual countries at the summit.

Sunak told reporters: "Some said we shouldn't even invite China, others said we would never get an agreement with them. Both were wrong."

US airs concerns to China about “dangerous and unlawful“ South China Sea actions

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china-southchinasea/us-airs-concerns-to-china-about-dangerous-and-unlawful-south-china-sea-actions-idUSKBN31Y1MC

The United States and China held "candid" talks on maritime issues on Friday, including on the contested South China Sea, and the U.S. side underscored its concerns about "dangerous and unlawful" Chinese actions there, the U.S. State Department said.

The talks took place in Beijing between the department's China Coordinator Mark Lambert and China's Director-General for Boundary and Ocean Affairs Hong Liang, the State Department said in a statement.

The meeting follows recent high-level diplomacy ahead of an expected meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the mid November APEC summit in San Francisco.

The U.S. statement said the talks were part of "efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage the U.S.-China relationship" and that the U.S. side reiterated the need to resume military-military channels, "to avoid miscommunication and miscalculation."

It described the talks as "substantive, constructive, and candid" and said they covered a range of maritime issues, including the South China Sea and East China Sea, which are contested by China and other nations.

"The United States underscored concerns with the PRC's dangerous and unlawful actions in the South China Sea," it said, referring to the People's Republic of China.

Such actions included China's obstruction of an Oct. 22 Philippine resupply mission at Second Thomas Shoal and its "unsafe" intercept of a U.S. aircraft on Oct. 24, the statement said.

China said on Monday after a visit by Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Washington that the U.S. and China would hold "consultations on arms control and non-proliferation" in the coming days, as well as separate talks on maritime affairs and other issues.

A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Arms Control Mallory Stewart would host Sun Xiaobo, head of the arms-control department at China's Foreign Ministry, at the State Department next week.

"We have continually called on the PRC to substantively engage on arms control issues and reducing strategic risk," the spokesperson said, a reference to U.S. concerns about China's nuclear weapons build-up and frustration that Beijing has shown little interest in discussing this.

A flurry of diplomatic engagements in recent months, largely at Washington's request, has sought to salvage what were rapidly deteriorating ties between the two countries following the U.S. downing in February of a suspected Chinese spy balloon.

While Biden and Xi are expected to meet this month, China has yet to confirm this and a senior Biden administration official said on Tuesday important details have yet to be hammered out.

Eyeing China, Biden and Latam leaders tighten economic bonds

https://reuters.com/article/usa-americas-summit/eyeing-china-biden-and-latam-leaders-tighten-economic-bonds-idUSKBN31Y0EO

U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders from Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean on Friday pledged to strengthen the Western Hemisphere's supply chains as Washington works to counter China and stem regional migration.

Biden hosted leaders from Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay and top officials from Mexico and Panama at the White House.

Leaders at the inaugural Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP) Leaders' Summit agreed to strengthening supply chains in areas including clean energy, medical supplies and semiconductors. The also vowed to expand regional trade links.

Biden started the meetings with a message of hope despite challenges posed by the Israel-Hamas conflict and the Ukraine war.

He said the summit's goal was to "harness the incredible economic potential of the Americas and make the Western Hemisphere the most economically competitive region in the world," drawing a sharp contrast to China's often-criticized lending practices.

"We want to make sure that our closest neighbors know they have a real choice between debt-trap diplomacy and high-quality transparent approaches to infrastructure and inter-development," Biden said.

The leaders agreed to meet every two years, with Costa Rica to host the next leaders' summit in 2025.

Senior U.S. officials said they hope to reduce the numbers of migrants arriving at the U.S-Mexico border by expanding economic opportunities for people at home.

Six APEP countries - Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Panama - had offered legal status to millions of people displaced in the Western Hemisphere, one of the officials said. "They have stepped up in big ways and we are stepping up for them," the official added.

Record numbers of migrants have crossed illegally through the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, with hundreds of thousands of people heading north after traversing a perilous jungle region known as the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama.

Jason Marczak, senior director of the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, said the partnership would "set the stage for a new era of U.S. investment in the region." He cited bipartisan support in Congress for more investment after supply chain snafus during the COVID-19 pandemic triggered concerns about over-reliance on China.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen hosted a meeting for the leaders on Friday and said Washington would work with other shareholders to enable a "significant" capital increase for the Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) private sector arm, IDB Invest.

The United States, Canada, South Korea and Spain are working with the IDB to make $89 million in grants available for countries dealing most with irregular migration, the White House said.

The IDB will also unveil a new financing platform to serve middle- and higher-income countries, potentially mobilizing billions of dollars for investment in renewable energy, U.S. officials said.

Meanwhile, the United States Agency for International Development committed $5 million to help launch an "accelerator" program to support up-and-coming entrepreneurs from the Americas.

Blockbuster show on Genghis Khan opens in France after row with China

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/03/blockbuster-show-on-genghis-khan-opens-in-france-after-row-with-china

It was a major cultural row between France and China, prompting a history museum to pull the plug on one of its most important exhibitions of the decade accusing the Beijing authorities of interference and trying to rewrite history.

But now the Chateau des ducs de Bretagne history museum in Nantes has finally opened its blockbuster exhibition on Genghis Khan and the Mongol empire, with large crowds queueing to see hundreds of objects that have never been shown in Europe, some dug up by archaeologists only three years ago. It is part of a new modern reading of the geopolitical importance of the vast continental empire.

The exhibition, Genghis Khan: How the Mongols Changed the World, is the first French show about the warrior ruler, who by the time of his death in 1227 ruled over an empire that stretched from the Caspian to the Pacific, four times the size of Alexander the Great’s and twice the size of Rome’s.

Crucially, the exhibition seeks to look beyond the cinematic cliches of bloodthirsty warriors to the wider-ranging and geopolitically relevant lessons of the expansive Mongol empire through the 13th and 14th centuries, from climate change to pandemics, cartography and science. At its height, the empire controlled more than 22% of the landmass of planet, stretching from the shores of Japan to eastern Europe.

The museum row in 2020 focused on the project’s collaboration with the Inner Mongolia Museum in Hohhot, China. Chinese authorities demanded that certain words, including “Genghis Khan”, “empire” and “Mongol”, be taken out of the French show. They asked for power over exhibition brochures, explainers and maps at a time when the Chinese government had hardened its discrimination against ethnic Mongols, many of whom live in the northern Chinese province of Inner Mongolia.

The Nantes museum pulled the plug and refused the demands, saying Chinese authorities wanted “elements of biased rewriting of Mongol culture in favour of a new national narrative”.

The new show, which features more than 400 pieces including helmets, fabrics, ceramics and paper money, has instead gone ahead in collaboration with museums in Mongolia, the landlocked country between Russia and China. It comes amid fresh interest and re-examining of the history of the Mongol empire ahead of a planned Royal Academy show in London on Mongol art.

Bertrand Guillet, the director of the Chateau des ducs de Bretagne and Nantes history museum, and general curator of the show, said: “What seemed important when we launched this project six years ago was to go beyond the figure of Genghis Kahn, who is known in slightly vulgar terms as a bloody tyrant.

“We wanted to look beyond the bloody conquests … to explore the coexistence between sedentary populations and nomad populations, a moment of globalisation that allowed considerable exchanges between east and west, the transfer of savoir-faire, the transfer of materials, ideas and that moment of exchange which sparked great changes in the history of humanity.”

Guillet said it was a way of looking afresh at history’s relevance to current geopolitics. “The Mongol empire was gigantic and there are echoes of its political and territorial questions today in the contemporary world: the relationship of China and Russia, what happens in Iran, in central Europe.”

He said a close reading of the history of the Mongol empire also revealed how it was confronted centuries ago with climate change in a way that “resonates with us today”. He said: “There is also the issue of globalisation and pandemics. One of the reasons for the collapse of the Mongol empire was the spread of the great plague, which circulated on the main routes across it.”

Guillet said religious tolerance in the empire had important effects on history in terms of the spread of Islam in central Asia as well as Christian and Buddhist history. Also, the maps created by the Mongols changed the world. “That cartography would be seen by Marco Polo and feed the imagination of Christopher Columbus, with multiple consequences.”

The exhibition runs until 5 May 2024.

As Australian leader heads to China, a critical (minerals) issue looms

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/03/australia-china-albanese-visit-rare-earths/2023-10-24T18:45:46.126Z

SYDNEY — When Anthony Albanese sits down with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday, the meeting will mark an achievement for the Australian prime minister, who has managed to mend once-fractured relations with his nation’s biggest trading partner without making concessions.

Looming over the event, however, will be Albanese’s previous overseas trip.

A week earlier, Albanese was in Washington, engaging in a not-so-subtle attempt to reduce his country’s reliance on China when it comes to critical minerals.

Albanese and American officials announced a raft of measures to steer Australia’s vast store of critical minerals — metallic elements and minerals crucial for clean energy technologies and some advanced weapons systems — away from being processed in China and instead sent to new plants in their own nations.

China and Australia are starting to get along. Will AUKUS torpedo it?

“China has a head start, and that means we have to work a little harder and a little faster,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo warned at an event with Albanese.

“They have the technology and sustained investment … to dominate the market for critical minerals,” she continued. “And we all know, if China were to point that new direction unfavorable to us, it can cause a great deal of pain, very quickly.”

Albanese’s language was more cautious ahead of his China trip, which will begin Saturday in Shanghai and is the first by an Australian prime minister in seven years.

But Australian officials are also worried Beijing will cut off critical mineral supply chains — a move that could cripple the world’s transition to cleaner energy and undercut China’s military adversaries.

“China, with its market dominance, has restricted trade in” critical minerals in the past, Madeleine King, Australia’s minister for resources who also traveled to Washington, told The Washington Post. “So we have to have our eyes wide open about the potential for those restrictions. And if we don’t diversify, then we’ll be beholden to them in the future.”

In China, the flurry of U.S.-Australia collaboration on critical minerals is stirring fears that their military cooperation could be creeping into areas that threaten Beijing’s bottom line at a time when the Chinese economy is struggling.

“Under constant pressure from the United States, the foundation of Australia’s previous balanced policy of ‘relying on China for economy and relying on the United States for security’ has been eroded,” Yu Lei, a professor of international politics at Shandong University, told state-affiliated tabloid the Global Times.

The clash over critical minerals is just one front in an intensifying geopolitical contest between Beijing and Washington. The two superpowers increasingly have vied for influence in the Asia Pacific, where China’s growing military strength and assertiveness have spurred new American security initiatives, including a resurrected Quad and a landmark deal to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.

In perhaps his most pointed move, President Biden barred sales of advanced computer chips and chip-making technology to China last year.

Rattled by China, U.S. and allies are beefing up defenses in the Pacific

The “chip war” has threatened to spread to critical minerals. China recently announced export controls on two metals used to make semiconductors and graphite, which is key to electronic vehicle batteries.

Among the announcements during Albanese’s trip to Washington were a $150 million U.S. loan for an Australian company building a graphite processing facility in Louisiana and a $100 million U.S. grant for another Australian company producing synthetic graphite in Tennessee.

These moves, along with others already underway for rare earth elements, are part of a broader global tilt toward protectionism and “friend-shoring” and away from free markets that accelerated during the covid-19 pandemic.

In the case of critical minerals, U.S. and Australian officials argue China already wields near monopolistic control.

“It’s not a free market,” said King. “China has dominated this, and they can dominate any operation they want really because of the nature of their regime.”

China hosts more than half the planet’s production of metals used in electronic vehicles, including lithium, cobalt and manganese. It is the world’s No. 1 graphite producer and exporter, and refines almost all of the global graphite supply. And its state-owned companies have cornered the market on rare earth elements required for super magnets used in advanced weapons systems.

Australian journalist, detained in China for three years, arrives home

“We’re in a cold war essentially on the trade front now,” said Jeff Green, a defense industry consultant and lobbyist in Washington. “I think the U.S. government is responding in kind. It’s working with allies like Australia, the U.K. and others to try to push back on this.”

China first flexed its critical mineral muscles in 2010 when, amid a maritime dispute with Japan, it suddenly cut off rare earth exports to Tokyo. Trade resumed after two months, but when a mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., tried to begin exporting rare earths to Japan, Chinese state-owned enterprises flooded the market, crushing the price and the American upstart, which eventually filed for bankruptcy.

China did the same thing to Australian company Lynas, which would have gone under had it not received help from the Japanese government.

For years, Lynas was the only major rare earths producer independent of China’s supply chain. It has a processing plant in Malaysia but it is now building one in Texas after its American subsidiary received a $258 million grant from the U.S. Defense Department.

The Mountain Pass mine has also reopened and begun processing rare earths, thanks to Defense Department funding.

Australia announced a similar deal last year, awarding a loan worth about $700 million to Australian company Iluka to build a rare earths processing plant Down Under. In Washington, Albanese announced an additional $1.3 billion in available loans for Australian critical minerals companies.

Kim Beazley, a former Australian defense minister, said it was about time his government intervened to boost domestic processing of critical minerals, rather than sending them to China.

“The Chinese have made absolutely certain with their statecraft that if a competitor gets going, they’ll be rubbed out,” he said. “So we’re practicing a bit of statecraft, too.”

In a recent paper, Beazley warned conflict with Beijing could result in China cutting off the flow of critical minerals. He called for more critical mineral collaboration within AUKUS, the trilateral security partnership of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. With investment, Australia could provide the trio with critical minerals for shared weapons systems for decades, he argued.

“We are a good ally, we know where the central weakness is and we have an answer to it,” he said.

More American investment could be coming. Biden has asked Congress to add Australia and the United Kingdom as “domestic sources” under the Defense Production Act. That would open up new investment and export possibilities for Australian critical minerals companies. They could also be eligible for funds from the Inflation Reduction Act passed last year.

Jane Nakano, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Australia deserved the domestic designation given how important it has become to the United States in recent years. She supports diversifying critical mineral supply chains but warned against moving too aggressively to sideline China.

“It would be very challenging to even try to cut China out of the picture without causing major disruptions to deploying these clean energy technologies, not just in the U.S. but elsewhere through commodity prices sky rocketing or becoming quite volatile,” she said.

Marina Zhang, an associate professor at University of Technology Sydney, said American and Australian efforts to reduce reliance on Chinese critical minerals could backfire.

“Critical mineral supply chains, in the context of climate change, are perhaps one of the few areas where the U.S. and China can reach an agreement to work together,” she said.

China’s foreign minister is in Washington. That counts as progress.

Australia, meanwhile, was in a “very awkward situation,” torn between economic and national security interests, Zhang argued. It could be years before Australia and the United States are able to process the amount of critical minerals they currently send to China, and, even then, the products would be more expensive.

She and Nakano agreed that the issue is unlikely to come up in Albanese’s meeting with Xi, as neither nation had a reason to raise it right now. But Zhang worried that critical mineral competition could escalate.

“It seems this tug of war, this strategic competition, is getting worse in recent times,” Zhang said. “So we really don’t know what is going to happen.”

Meaghan Tobin and Pei-Lin Wu in Taipei contributed to this report.

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With an eye toward China, Biden to meet Latin leaders on economics, migration

https://reuters.com/article/usa-americas-summit/with-an-eye-toward-china-biden-to-meet-latin-leaders-on-economics-migration-idUSKBN31Y0EO

U.S. President Joe Biden will host leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean at the White House on Friday to discuss economic issues and migration as he seeks to bolster ties in the region to counter China and other global competitors.

Leaders from Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay are expected to attend Friday's gathering, as well as representatives from Mexico and Panama.

The inaugural Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP) Leaders' Summit comes as Biden's foreign policy agenda is dominated by the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and Ukraine's bid to repel Russian invaders.

The United States is expected to announce new development financing for countries hosting migrants in the Western Hemisphere as part of an effort to curb migrant arrivals at the U.S-Mexico border and expand economic cooperation in the region.

The summit follows a similarly themed meeting of Western Hemisphere leaders in Los Angeles last year, part of a broader push aimed at strengthening regional economic ties and reducing China's influence in the region.

At the "Summit of the Americas" in Los Angeles last year, Biden signed a non-binding declaration where 20 countries from the region agreed to a set of measures to confront the migration crisis.

Record numbers of migrants have crossed illegally into the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, with hundreds of thousands of people heading north after passing through a perilous jungle region known as the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama.

China warms to U.S. chipmaker Micron, as tensions with Washington ease

https://reuters.com/article/china-micron-tech/china-warms-to-u-s-chipmaker-micron-as-tensions-with-washington-ease-idUSKBN31Y080

China's commerce minister told Micron Technology Inc's (MU.O) president Beijing would welcome the U.S. semiconductor company deepening its footprint in the Chinese market, signally a further thaw in relations between the world's top two economies.

In a meeting on Nov. 1, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao told Sanjay Mehrotra, President and CEO of Micron Technology, that China will optimize the environment for foreign investment and provide service guarantees for foreign enterprises, according to a brief statement published on Friday on the commerce ministry's website.

"We welcome Micron Technology to continue to take root in the Chinese market and achieve better development under the premise of complying with Chinese laws and regulations," Wang added.

The detente comes just months after China's cyberspace regulator said Micron had failed a network security review and barred Chinese operators of key infrastructure from buying from the largest U.S. memory chipmaker.

China's move against Micron was widely seen as retaliation for Washington's efforts to restrict Beijing's access to key technology. It came just a day after the Group of Seven (G7) rich nations agreed they would look to "de-risk, not decouple" from China, and as Washington pressured its allies to join it in restricting chip equipment exports to China.

The Wednesday meeting between Wang and Mehrotra is line with a recent thawing in tensions between Washington and Beijing, as officials from both countries work to organise a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping later this month at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco.

[World] Australia and China eye new ways to heal old wounds

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-67293753?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

China iPhone sales strong, Apple tells investors as Huawei threat looms

https://reuters.com/article/apple-results-china/china-iphone-sales-strong-apple-tells-investors-as-huawei-threat-looms-idUSKBN31Y011

Apple (AAPL.O) said on Thursday that demand for its iPhones in China was strong, trying to reassure investors who are worried it is losing ground to a newly resurgent Huawei Technologies [RIC:RIC:HWT.UL] and other local smartphone makers.

"In mainland China, we set a quarterly record for the September quarter for iPhone," Chief Executive Tim Cook told Reuters in an interview. "We had four out of the top five best-selling smartphones in urban China."

Apple appeared to have gained market share in China in the July-September period, even if the overall smartphone market may have contracted, he said on a conference call with analysts.

The company expects to sell more iPhones in the holiday quarter despite this year's quarter having one fewer week of sales than the prior year's, Cook said.

Research firm Canalys estimated that overall smartphone sales in China fell 3% in July-September from a year earlier as consumers bought fewer smartphones as an economic recovery was choppy.

That was slower pace of decline than previous quarters, a sign that a slump in the market had eased. Sales of iPhones in China fell 6%, Canalys said.

On the other hand, analysts estimate that Huawei's China smartphone sales grew strongly in the quarter. Its Mate 60 Pro phone has grabbed headlines for using an advanced China-made chip despite being squeezed for years by debilitating U.S. sanctions.

Apple said on Thursday that its overall sales in China dipped 2.5% but it blamed tough Mac computer and iPad sales for that. Cook said sales there grew after accounting for foreign-exchange rates.

Apple's sales in China have fallen in three of the four quarters in its 2023 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

Apple's comments followed optimistic commentary from its chip supplier Qualcomm (QCOM.O) on Wednesday, which signaled that a two-year-long slump in the smartphone market was easing, led by a recovery in China.

Qorvo (QRVO.O), another wireless connectivity chip supplier to Apple, also said inventory levels at their China customers were slowly falling and that the company had recorded its largest bookings quarter in more than two years.

Both chipmakers posted upbeat forecasts, with Qualcomm predicting a 35% quarter-on-quarter rise in sales to Chinese smartphone customers.

Qualcomm is also facing new competition from Huawei's chips, but said on Wednesday it does not expect Huawei's re-entry into the market to affect its relationship with Chinese smartphone companies.

Yellen: Indo-Pacific allies should not have to choose between US, China

https://reuters.com/article/apec-usa-yellen/yellen-indo-pacific-allies-should-not-have-to-choose-between-us-china-idUSKBN31X1B3

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday sought to reassure Asian countries that the U.S. approach to China will not lead to a 'disastrous' division of the global economy that would force them to take sides.

In a speech ahead of the U.S.-hosted Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in San Francisco later this month, Yellen said that a full de-coupling of the U.S. and Chinese economies was "simply not practical," especially given the complexity of Asian supply chains and deep economic linkages to China in the region.

Her comments sought to assuage growing concerns about geopolitical fragmentation of the global economy into U.S.-led and China-led factions as export and national security technology controls grow between the world's two largest economies.

"A full separation of our economies, or an approach in which countries including those in the Indo-Pacific are forced to take sides, would have significant negative global repercussions," Yellen said. "We have no interest in such a divided world and its disastrous effects."

Yellen said the U.S. instead was pursuing the "de-risking and diversifying" of its economic ties to China, by investing in manufacturing at home and by strengthening linkages with allies and partners around the world, including Indo-Pacific countries.

The U.S. Treasury chief said the Biden administration was committed to expanding trade and investment with Indo-Pacific countries, emphasizing the region's strategic importance.

Deeper economic links with Indo-Pacific countries will help make U.S. supply chains more resilient and tap into a dynamic and growing market for U.S. exports, she said.

The Biden administration is preparing to host leaders and other top officials from APEC countries in San Francisco from Nov. 11-17.

It also has called a seventh negotiating round for its Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) initiative next week in San Francisco, aimed at reaching some agreements in time for the APEC summit.

"As we look toward APEC later this month, let me state unequivocally: Claims that America is turning away from the Indo-Pacific are wholly unfounded," Yellen said in the excerpts. "We are deepening our economic ties across the region, with tremendous potential benefits for the U.S. economy and for the Indo-Pacific."

IPEF, while far short of a traditional free trade agreement, is the Biden administration's signature initiative to engage economically with Asian countries and provide them a trade and investment alternative to China.

Yellen's excerpts did not mention China, but said deeper integration with Indo-Pacific countries would benefit the region and the U.S. She noted that U.S. two-way trade with the region reached a value of $2.28 trillion in 2022, up 25% since 2019, with the region taking nearly a quarter of U.S. exports.

"The economic case for our expanding trade and investment is clear. The Indo-Pacific is a dynamic and rapidly growing region. As it grows, we gain a fast-expanding customer base for U.S. firms and workers," Yellen said.

Part of the reason for increased trade with the region has been the migration of U.S. supply chains away from China, a trend that started with tariffs imposed by former President Donald Trump in 2018 and accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yellen said economic engagement with Indo-Pacific countries, including Vietnam, is "crucial to bolstering our supply chain security" to avoid bottlenecks and shortages that occurred as the world emerged from the pandemic. She repeated her desire to diversify supply chains to countries in the region through "friend-shoring" or using trusted allies as sources of supply.

"And achieving resilience through partnering with Indo-Pacific countries means gains for Indo-Pacific economies as well," Yellen said.

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