Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen got here to China amid hopes that the United States might restart a relationship that has been deteriorating for years and had gotten off the rails not too long ago over important factors of pressure — together with the warfare in Ukraine, a Chinese spy balloon that flew over U.S. territory and was shot down by the American navy, and the 2 international locations’ escalating alternate of restrictions on trade.

After 10 hours of conferences over two days in Beijing, Ms. Yellen stated at a news convention on Sunday that she believed the United States and China had been on a steadier footing regardless of their “significant disagreements.”

“We believe that the world is big enough for both of our countries to thrive,” Ms. Yellen stated.

Ms. Yellen introduced that the 2 sides would pursue extra frequent communication on the highest ranges, describing improved dialogue as a strategy to forestall distrust from constructing and fraying a relationship that she referred to as “one of the most consequential of our time.” Her journey adopted one a number of weeks by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. And later this month, John Kerry, the particular presidential envoy for local weather change, will go to China to restart world warming negotiations.

Yet a significant easing of the financial pressure is probably not seemingly. Ms. Yellen headed again to Washington on Sunday with no bulletins of breakthroughs or agreements to fix the persistent fissures between the 2 nations. And Ms. Yellen made clear that the Biden administration has critical issues about a lot of China’s business practices, together with its remedy of overseas firms, and insurance policies that the United States views as efforts at financial coercion.

On her journey, the primary by a U.S. Treasury secretary in 4 years, Ms. Yellen met with 4 of essentially the most highly effective Chinese leaders concerned in financial policymaking below President Xi Jinping, who’s at the beginning of his third time period in workplace: Premier Li Qiang, China’s No. 2 official; Ms. Yellen’s counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng; the finance minister, Liu Kun; and the newly put in celebration chief of the People’s Bank of China, Pan Gongsheng.

Hours earlier than Ms. Yellen’s news convention, China’s official news company, Xinhua, issued a report on her go to that described the talks as constructive but in addition reiterated what China sees as key areas of dispute. The report expressed China’s continued objections to the Biden administration’s emphasis on preserving American nationwide safety by means of commerce restrictions.

“China believes that generalizing national security is not conducive to normal economic and trade exchanges,” Xinhua stated. “The Chinese side expressed concern about U.S. sanctions and restrictive measures against China.”

The U.S.-China relationship is enormously consequential. Their economies, the world’s two largest, collectively characterize 40 % of world output and stay integral companions in some ways. They promote and purchase crucial merchandise from one another, finance one another’s companies, and create apps and films for audiences in each international locations.

Chinese officers raised their very own issues with Ms. Yellen. The Treasury secretary stated they mentioned the tariffs that the Trump administration imposed on Chinese imports, which have been left in place. While Ms. Yellen has criticized tariffs as ineffective, she urged that the administration wouldn’t make any resolution in regards to the levies till an ongoing inside assessment of them was concluded, reiterating the place of the administration since President Biden took workplace.

She additionally acknowledged Chinese issues about looming U.S. restrictions on investment in China and stated that she tried to elucidate that such measures can be narrowly focused at sure sectors and wouldn’t be supposed to have broad results on China’s financial system. Chinese officers and specialists additionally fear that the administration’s efforts to restrict China’s entry to sure know-how might impair their improvement of high-potential industries like synthetic intelligence and quantum computing.

China has had its personal broader restrictions on outbound funding since 2016, because it has inspired Chinese firms and households to keep away from abroad actual property hypothesis and has pushed them as a substitute to invest abroad in sectors of strategic value like plane manufacturing, heavy manufacturing and cybersecurity.

Wu Xinbo, the dean of worldwide research at Fudan University in Shanghai, cautioned that Ms. Yellen’s journey wouldn’t end in a substantive enchancment in relations except it was accompanied by modifications within the Biden administration’s insurance policies towards China.

“So far, we haven’t seen any sign that Biden will rethink his economic policy toward China,” he stated.

The need for extra dialogue struck some analysts as a major improvement, with each international locations at the very least speaking about their disagreements after months of silence.

He Weiwen, a former official at China’s Ministry of Commerce who’s now a senior fellow on the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing, welcomed Ms. Yellen’s remark that each China and the United States might thrive. “China and the U.S. have profound differences, so constant, direct exchanges are not only constructive but of crucial importance,” he stated.

Chinese financial policymakers have a protracted historical past of working extra intently with the Treasury Department, which has traditionally valued China as a large investor in American bonds and as a possible marketplace for American monetary providers. The Commerce Department and the Office of the United States Trade Representative, with their better emphasis on fostering employment and industrial self-reliance, have tended to have extra fractious relationships with their Chinese counterparts.

This was significantly true through the Trump administration. Liu He, who was the vice premier overseeing worldwide financial coverage till He Lifeng succeeded him 4 months in the past, tried repeatedly to achieve compromises on commerce and financial issues with Steven Mnuchin, who served as Treasury Secretary below former President Donald J. Trump. But Mr. Mnuchin was unable to steer Mr. Trump, who ended up imposing tariffs on a variety of Chinese exports as retaliation for what he stated had been unfair enterprise practices.

Many U.S. companies with ties to China, together with Chinese officers, had hoped for friendlier relations below Mr. Biden. Instead, tensions between the U.S. and China have grown deeper over the previous two years and have become downright frosty after the spy balloon episode in February.

While Ms. Yellen’s go to was seen as a optimistic step, many specialists in each China and the United States cautioned towards anticipating lots to alter.

“Yellen’s trip will likely turn down the temperature on the economic relationship for a bit and remind the U.S. and China that they share some commercial interests, even if waning, and they need to talk through thick and thin — perhaps business conditions will improve at the margins,” stated Mark Sobel, a former longtime Treasury official.

But given nationwide safety issues in each international locations, a notion in China that the U.S. seeks to comprise its financial development and hawkish political language on each side, he stated, “Yellen’s trip will hardly change the underlying dynamic and trajectory of the economic relationship.”

Despite the disagreements between the U.S. and China, Ms. Yellen was greeted warmly throughout her first go to to Beijing as Treasury secretary.

In a gathering with Premier Li Qiang, China’s second-highest official, he talked about {that a} rainbow had appeared overhead upon her arrival and urged it was a logo of hope that ties between the 2 international locations might be mended.

After Ms. Yellen was noticed eating on Thursday night time at a restaurant that serves delicacies from the province of Yunnan, Chinese state media wrote about her impressive use of chopsticks and reported that bookings on the restaurant had been up after she was seen consuming mushroom dishes on social media.

Ms. Yellen additionally met with Chinese specialists on local weather finance and had lunch with a gaggle of Chinese ladies who’re economists and entrepreneurs. She urged that there are various areas the place the United States and China can discover settlement.

“Our people share many things in common — far more than our differences,” Ms. Yellen stated on the lunch.

Ana Swanson contributed reporting.