“Geithner calls for close ties with China” reads the headline on an FT story today on the US treasury secretary’s maiden visit to the country.
But would those be red ties or pink ones?
One for the too-much-detail files below. From the US Treasury (emphasis ours):
Wang Qishan, China’s vice premier, and Timothy Geithner, U.S. Treasury Secretary, met in the Anhui Hall of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing at 3 p.m. Monday, June 1, 2009. The Chinese representatives were seated at a long table, covered in a dark green table cloth, that was perpendicular to the main door. The U.S. delegation sat at an identical table facing the Chinese team. China was seated to the left and the U.S. to the right.
Here are their remarks:
Wang, wearing a dark suit and pink tie:
First of all let me welcome you Mr. Secretary as the special representative of President Obama. The China-U.S. Strategic & Economic Dialogue mechanism jointly initiated by President Hu Jintao and President Obama is an important initiative in growing the China-U.S. relationship… For you and I and our respective teams the forthcoming economic dialogue of the China-U.S. Strategic & Economic Dialogue is the foremost subject on our minds.
Geithner, wearing a charcoal grey suit and red tie:
Thank you, Mr. Vice Premier. It’s a pleasure to be back in China and it’s nice to see my colleagues at the ministry and governor Zhou. We’re here of course as you said to begin to lay the foundation for a very strong cooperative economic relationship. We look forward to hosting you in Washington for the first meeting of the Strategic & Economic Dialogue very soon. I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting with a number of your colleagues to get a better sense of what’s happening in China now on the financial and economic front. And I look forward to continuing that conversation with you today.
As I said this relationship between our two countries is very important. We’re taking a long view. The world is going through an exceptionally challenging period now and I think the world has a huge stake in our two countries working closely together to lay a foundation for recovery and to put in place the kind of reforms that allow for a stronger, more balanced recovery in the future with an international financial system that is more able to provide a foundation for stability in the future. So we very much look forward to building on this relationship to build on progress you made with my predecessor and I’m grateful to be here with you in Beijing.
The detail is, of course, excusable really as it’s a pool report for the press corp. But still, info on the trigonometry of the furniture might just be overcooking things.
In a more serious vein, as the FT’s story notes, was Geithner’s touching upon the currency situation. While Geithner hasn’t exactly been shy about it in the past, it’s still something of a taboo subject in US/China economic relations. Where the Chinese see an efficiently priced renminbi, the American’s see an artificially priced renminbi. And accordingly, while the Chinese are wont to see themselves as saviours of the world from total economic meltdown, the Americans tend to see them, and the US-China trade imbalance, as something of the cause of it.
In the event, what Geithner said today wasn’t in itself particularly exciting, but it does show the US is still pushing for change on the currency front. Speaking at Peking university, Geithner said that an important part of the Chinese government’s contributions towards a more balanced global economy was a “commitment to continue progress toward a more flexible exchange rate regime”.
But what colour were his socks?
Related links:
China’s manufacturing continues to expand -FT
Dollar suffers as risk appetite soars - FT
Roubini: the renminbi will replace the dollar - FT Alphaville
