With just two weeks to go, outgoing American Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has a curious last meeting with China Vice Premier He Lifeng. 

If you live in Asia and your work is in any way affected by the US-China relationship, you better buckle up, as things will be bumpy from here on out.

We have less than two weeks to go before Scott Bessent, pending Senate confirmation, is slated to replace Janet Yellen as US Treasury Secretary, but that has not stopped her from having one last meeting with China Vice Premier He Lifeng.

Doesn’t Jibe

An overnight readout by the Treasury indicated that the meeting was appreciatively virtual, as anything else would have seemed entirely odd, both in the US and on the mainland.

But the justification and all the other stuff that went along with it just doesn’t entirely jibe.

Parting Shot

The Treasury indicated that it was part of an effort on her part to «responsibly manage» the bilateral economic relationship. In the context of the situation, it sounds like a parting shot at the incoming administration.

After that, it mentions that both parties discussed macroeconomic developments in the two countries while reviewing the two working groups they jointly established last year.

Dead in the Water

Although the boilerplate language is nothing new, reading between the lines, we would assume that the two groups, one economic and the other financial, are as dead in the water as they can be.

Tangentially related to that, Trump happily debunked a «Washington Post» story on Truth Social yesterday that his tariff policy was going to be pared back as just so much «Fake News».

New Hyperpower

That pretty much renders anything both do largely moot as he continues to attempt to conjure up a looming global hyperpower (you heard the term here first) by coopting Canada, Greenland, and, possibly, the Panama Canal, as future US dominions.

Still, Yellen is no political neophyte. Starting with the Clinton administration three decades ago, she has managed various very senior economic roles, including being Federal Reserve Chair under Barack Obama.

Indirect Explicitness

To that end, she used the current context to repeat several issues of concern related to China’s «non-market» policies and practices and the country’s industrial overcapacity.

She used them as a clear and unmistakable, even adroit, signal to both sides of the geopolitical equation, mentioning that it would continue to harm US workers and companies that «unless addressed, will continue to adversely affect the bilateral US-China economic relationship».

Serious Concern

She also again warned about providing support related to Russia’s war in Ukraine and relayed «serious concern» about the recent string of cyber-attacks against US infrastructure.

The former was more of the same boilerplate while the latter was something relatively new.

Why Now?

The readout ended by saying that the call had been «candid, in-depth and constructive», and that both sides «agreed about the importance of communication and contact,» another indirect broadside at the cohort of Trump 2.0s about to assume office.

But still, everything considered, you wonder why the meeting was even held. In the end, the simplest explanation is the most probable.

Unlikely Probability

You would have to assume it was scheduled well before the elections at a time when the possibility of a second Trump term was barely a gleam in the eye of talk show hosts, and it seemed like a very unlikely legal-judicial probability.