So what is it – are we in a urgent civilizational crisis on overheating Earth, or are we in all important competition who will sell more electric cars to the world?

If the competition is more important - killing China’s car industry makes sense. If overheating is more important - killing Chinese cars doesn’t make sense. 

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"BEIJING -- When Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met her Chinese counterpart in Switzerland early last year, she tiptoed around controversial issues, raising trade disagreements only during a brief, one-on-one coffee break with Liu He, then China's vice premier, according to people familiar with the meeting.

In China over the past few days, Yellen wasn't so shy. She hammered Chinese officials for exporting too many clean-energy goods, warning regional officials, as well as Vice Premier He Lifeng and Premier Li Qiang, to scale back industrial production (How can there be too many clean energy goods if the Earth is catastrophically rapidly sinking into hot chaos due to our dirty energy use? (K)).

"I think my job here is to make sure I've explained this very thoroughly and presented this concern at the highest levels of Chinese leadership," Yellen said at a press conference Monday, at the end of her trip. The pointed message will test a delicate detente between the U.S. and China.

President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have spent more than a year seeking to re-establish a modicum of trust between the world's two largest economies and prevent a spiral into deeper hostilities. Now, the U.S. is expending some of that goodwill on addressing a growing irritant in Washington: trade.

The Biden administration fears that a wave of Chinese goods could overwhelm American industry, leading to job losses and business closures. In response, Washington is preparing to raise tariffs on some Chinese goods, including electric vehicles.

Chinese officials and state media outlets have dismissed Yellen's warnings about overproduction as a pretext to suppress China's rise. Beijing is also moving forward with its own challenge to U.S. industrial practices at the World Trade Organization.

On Saturday, after Yellen's meetings with He, the two sides agreed to continue conversations on "balanced economic growth." They will resume in the U.S. next week.

A central U.S. concern is that the Chinese economy has a shortage of domestic demand to absorb its industrial supply, meaning the excess is shipped to global markets, where it depresses prices. To help close the imbalance, Yellen said Chinese policymakers should spur consumer spending through steps such as bolstering public-retirement benefits and making education more affordable.

But Chinese officials see green industry as a potential antidote to a prolonged downturn in the property market that has dragged on growth. During the talks, Chinese officials pointed out that the U.S. is also providing generous subsidies to its clean-energy industry, according to a senior Treasury official.

In the U.S., the approach of November's presidential election could prompt the Biden administration to keep up the pressure on Beijing. Biden's Republican rival Donald Trump, who first placed tariffs on Chinese imports during his presidency, has called for dramatically raising the levies, and Democrats in swing states are pushing Biden to take more measures against Chinese industry. Repeatedly asked about the possibility of raising tariffs, Yellen said she didn't want to get ahead of the administration's policy actions.

"This is a complicated issue that involves their entire macroeconomic and industrial strategy. It's not going to be solved in an afternoon or a month," Yellen told reporters in Guangzhou.

Other contentious topics cropped up during the trip. Chinese officials complained about Washington's cutting off access to advanced U.S. technology and investment, as well as an effort in Congress to ban TikTok, the short-video app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, in the U.S. Yellen raised concerns about Chinese firms and financial institutions helping provide goods to Russia that Moscow is using in Ukraine events.

Still, Yellen was given a warm welcome. In Guangzhou, she and He, the vice premier, took a boat cruise along the Pearl River, while in Beijing, Yellen toured the Forbidden City. The former Federal Reserve chair is something of a celebrity in China, where her dining choices are closely scrutinized on social media.

In Guangzhou, footage of Yellen eating at a dim sum restaurant quickly made the rounds. State media praised what they described as her "proficient use of chopsticks." After she ate at a Beijing restaurant on Saturday serving spicy dishes from Sichuan province, one closely watched Chinese social-media account believed to be tied to state media used the opportunity to underscore the importance of managing the "heat" in U.S.-China bilateral ties.

Some of the mood music was more ominous. During a visit to Peking University, officials at the elite Beijing university requested that the media not photograph students who were meeting with Yellen, citing a desire to protect them from online harassment for having hobnobbed with a senior U.S. official." [1]

1. World News: Yellen Tests U.S.-China Detente --- Treasury secretary used Beijing trip to deliver warning on its export practices. Duehren, Andrew.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 09 Apr 2024: A.7.