The economic working group between the two countries meets during the IMF-World Bank annual meeting and exchanges pleasantries as the Harris-Trump vote looms.
This year, the IMF-World Bank annual meeting must tiptoe gently around the impending US presidential elections.
Although this is not the first time this has happened, the public tone and nervousness appear particularly fraught this time around, rendering most resulting public statements into a largely PR-dominated exercise in blandness.
Working Group
A US Treasury readout of the sixth meeting of the Economic Working Group (EWG) with China released late last week showed some of that anxiety, particularly as it may not even exist next year.
The US said both sides discussed China’s recent stimulus and mentioned the possibility of the two cooperating on low-income countries facing liquidity challenges.
Overcapacity Redux
«The U.S. side continued to raise concerns related to China’s industrial overcapacity and its impact on U.S. workers and firms,» the statement indicated, a theme that finews.asia has discussed several times.
After that, nothing. The statement by G-7 finance ministers and central bank heads was much the same, although they appeared at pains to indicate that the Ukrainian finance minister had joined the meeting after the public brouhaha related to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's appearance at the BRICS summit in Russia last week.
Holding their Breath
Right now it seems many senior leaders around the world are holding their collective breath until next Tuesday, after which they will take things one step at a time depending on who wins.
The same goes for US-China geopolitical tension. We have one week to go until we get a clue as to what the future looks like for the finance sector here in the region.
