Editor's note: Amidst expectations of a potential shift in the strained China-U.S. relations, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen embarks on a visit to China following Secretary of State Antony Blinken's recent trip to Beijing. To gain valuable perspectives on the changing power dynamics between these two nations, their implications for global security, and the importance of high-level dialogues, CGTN's Sr. International Editor Abhishek G. Bhaya spoke with Douglas H. Paal, a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The views expressed in the video are his own and not necessarily those of CGTN.

Edited excerpts:

CGTN: How do you assess the current power dynamics between China and the United States and what impact does this relationship have on global security? Also, are there areas of cooperation or potential conflicts that deserve particular attention?

Paal: You've asked questions that could fill a large set of volumes in response. The U.S. has concerns about the rise of Chinese power, and what China intends to do with it, and to the extent it might affect American abiding interests in the Asia-Pacific region. Whether those affect us bilaterally, domestically or internationally with our friends and partners in the region. And China has its concerns that the U.S. doesn't want China to succeed and move forward, sees the U.S. is trying to contain China and use Taiwan [region] as a card against China and these issues keep coming back up for discussion.

They're very hard issues to resolve in the abstract or in large dimensions. And therefore, my inclination is always to try to find small steps that can move us in a direction away from conflict and toward some, if not reconciliation, at least toward management of those tensions that arise in the normal course of our business. And we've got some opportunities ahead of us to restore some things that have been lost in the last few years. Not the biggest things, but some little things and hope that those little things can lead to bigger things going farther forward.

CGTN: After a lot of disruptions, China and the U.S. have started talking at the higher levels again. What are your reactions and expectations regarding Secretary Yellen's visit? Do you expect any positive outcomes from this visit?

Paal: Well, the delays in implementing the agreement between President Xi Jinping and President Biden in Bali at the G20 meeting to get things on a more normal track have made it harder for us to achieve the small steps of improvement in relations that I just talked about with you, in time for the U.S. to host President Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum meetings in San Francisco in November.

I think it's not commonly discussed in the media, but behind the scenes people are all focused on what can we do to stabilize relations going into that meeting, and then for us Americans going into an election year, when the opposition, the Republican opposition – whether in Congress or Senate, or the presidential election – will be trying to portray everything that happens in the most negative light possible. So, you want to protect yourself from that kind of criticism while at the same time not allowing U.S.-China relations to become the overwhelming issue that would distract certainly the Biden team from getting reelected in the next election.

So, the timeline is actually pretty short. We lost a couple of months between February and last month when Blinken was unable to visit China. And now it's been restarted. Secretary Yellen's visit is important because there's more to do between the U.S. and China that matters most to us bilaterally, to each country, and to the globe in the area of finance and credit and debt management, the global debt crisis that's overcoming the LDCs (least developing countries). All of these can be the fitting work for her.

She prepares also for the APEC meeting, for the G20 meeting in India in September and then we try to stabilize relations before the upcoming election. So, there's a lot weighing on these small steps but they should not be called insignificant because they're small, they're important, sort of landmarks, on the way to management of U.S.-China relations.

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