At her affirmation listening to in early 2021, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen struck a troublesome tone on China, describing it as America’s most necessary strategic competitor and pledging to confront its “abusive, unfair and illegal practices” that she stated have been harming companies and staff within the United States.

Since then, Ms. Yellen has emerged as a voice of moderation within the Biden administration, embracing the mantle of financial pragmatism because the world economic system copes with inflation and sluggish progress. The Treasury secretary has expressed objections to China’s document on human rights, known as for diversifying American provide chains and acknowledged that defending nationwide safety is paramount.

But she has additionally been the administration’s most distinguished proponent of sustaining financial ties with China, arguing towards tariffs, urging warning on new restrictions on funding in China and, most lately, warning that decoupling the 2 economies would be “disastrous.”

Set to arrive in Beijing on Thursday for a four-day visit, Ms. Yellen might be navigating these conflicting pursuits in actual time. The journey, her first as Treasury secretary, represents Ms. Yellen’s most difficult check of financial diplomacy to this point as she makes an attempt to ease years of festering distrust between the United States and China.

For Ms. Yellen, the problem might be to persuade her Chinese counterparts that the bevy of U.S. measures blocking entry to delicate expertise equivalent to semiconductors within the title of nationwide safety aren’t supposed to inflict hurt on the Chinese economic system. That won’t be straightforward, as each nations proceed to erect new limitations to commerce and funding.

The Biden administration is getting ready a number of new restrictions on U.S. expertise commerce with China, together with potential limits on advanced chips and U.S. investment in the country. Forthcoming guidelines additionally seem prone to clamp down on Chinese corporations’ entry to U.S. cloud computing companies, in response to individuals accustomed to the matter, in an effort to shut a loophole in earlier restrictions on China’s entry to superior chips used for synthetic intelligence.

This week Beijing retaliated towards the Biden administration’s limits on semiconductors, saying it will limit the export of sure crucial minerals used within the manufacturing of some chips.

On Monday, forward of her journey, Ms. Yellen met in Washington with Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the United States, and laid out “issues of concern” in what the Treasury Department described as a frank dialog. According to a abstract of the dialog launched by the Chinese Embassy, Mr. Xie defined China’s objections to America’s commerce practices and urged the United States to take steps to resolve them.

In her conferences in Beijing, Ms. Yellen is anticipated to make the case that the Biden administration’s actions to make the U.S. economic system much less reliant on China and to entice extra manufacturing of crucial supplies contained in the United States are narrowly centered measures that aren’t meant to instigate a broader financial struggle. China continues to carry practically $1 trillion of U.S. debt and is America’s third-largest buying and selling associate, making an abrupt severing of ties doubtlessly calamitous for each nations and the worldwide economic system.

“I think she is going to go as the sober voice of reason to say this is not about containment,” stated Tim Adams, the president of the Institute of International Finance and a former Treasury beneath secretary for worldwide affairs. “It’s really about setting the tone of cooperation and showing that the U.S. remains interested in being engaged with China on trade and investment.”

Through the previous a number of a long time, the Treasury has persistently been the American authorities company that has tried hardest to keep up pleasant relations with China. Wall Street companies, a key constituency for the division, tried by way of the Nineties to win entry to the Chinese market by way of China’s negotiations to hitch the World Trade Organization. After China joined the W.T.O. in 2002, Wall Street companies and the Treasury Department pushed for China to maneuver quicker in truly opening its markets.

Beijing lastly agreed in November 2017 to permit foreign investors to hold much larger stakes in insurance, banking and securities businesses, as a part of a collection of concessions made in an unsuccessful try to move off a commerce struggle with the Trump administration.

While it’s her first journey to Beijing as Treasury secretary, Ms. Yellen isn’t any stranger to China. In her function as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, she had common contact with Chinese officers, and as chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018 she would meet with officers from China’s central financial institution at worldwide gatherings.

Ms. Yellen’s credentials as a tutorial economist have made her a welcome emissary in Beijing.

“They like her very much because she looks at the world in economic terms, and they’re extremely comfortable with that,” stated Craig Allen, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council.

Michael Pillsbury, a senior fellow for China technique on the Heritage Foundation, stated that Chinese officers considered Ms. Yellen as a voice of purpose and that they hoped she would be capable to make the case to others within the Biden administration that the United States ought to again away from new funding restrictions and roll again tariffs.

“They want Janet to help,” stated Mr. Pillsbury, who was a prime adviser on China within the Trump administration. “They see her as a friend of China.”

Ms. Yellen doesn’t direct commerce coverage, however she has been crucial of the tariffs that President Donald J. Trump imposed on greater than $300 billion of Chinese imports.

“Tariffs are taxes on consumers,” Ms. Yellen told The New York Times in 2021. “In some cases it seems to me what we did hurt American consumers, and the type of deal that the prior administration negotiated really didn’t address in many ways the fundamental problems we have with China.”

Those tariffs stay beneath assessment by the Office of the United States Trade Representative, and Ms. Yellen has acknowledged that they’re unlikely to be rolled again anytime quickly.

Ms. Yellen’s skill to forge deeper ties with Beijing may very well be sophisticated by the present political second.

Concerns about China have grown after a spy balloon traversed the United States earlier than being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean. The upcoming presidential election can also be prone to escalate anti-China rhetoric as candidates look to color themselves as powerful on China, usually a profitable marketing campaign message. And Republicans have been expressing criticism of larger U.S. outreach to China.

Ms. Yellen’s go to follows a trip last month by Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state. John F. Kerry, the particular local weather envoy, is anticipated to make a visit to Beijing quickly.

Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who leads the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, accused the Biden administration of slow-walking export restrictions focusing on Huawei, the Chinese telecom large, and sanctions towards Chinese officers accountable for human rights violations towards Uyghurs in Xinjiang. He argued that China’s habits had gotten worse whereas the Biden administration pursued “zombie engagement” with the Chinese Communist Party.

“After Secretary Blinken left Beijing with little to show for his trip, doubling down by sending additional cabinet-level officials like Secretary Yellen would only perpetuate this vicious cycle,” Mr. Gallagher stated.

With Republican presidential candidates like Nikki Haley warning that China is “preparing for war” with the United States, there may be extra urgency for Ms. Yellen to search out methods to maintain the traces of communication along with her Chinese counterparts open even when her journey doesn’t yield any main breakthroughs.

“The Chinese are very aware of the U.S. election cycle, and in my mind this is partly why they have been willing to be a little more open,” stated Eswar Prasad, a former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division. “Both Secretary Yellen and the Chinese would like to get back to a place where they see at least parts of the economic relationship as a positive-sum game, rather than a zero-sum game.”

Keith Bradsher contributed reporting.