“We’ve been clear with China that we see Russia as gaining support from goods that China, Chinese firms are supplying to Russia,” Yellen told journalists in Guangzhou.

“Neither of us want this to be an issue with our bilateral relationship. So we’re working together,” she added.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, Beijing’s ties with Moscow have become even stronger than before the conflict, with trade between the two countries more than doubling from $108 billion in 2020 to $240 billion in 2023 — making Russia China’s 10th-largest trading partner last year.

China is also trying to expand its market share of goods shipped to Europe and the U.S. — so Beijing has an interest in maintaining good relations with the West too. But the U.S. is increasingly worried about the cheap electric vehicles, batteries and other technologies flooding the American market despite Washington’s subsidies to its own industry, which is suffering from the Chinese competition.

Yellen’s talks in China on Friday and Saturday were held to “facilitate a discussion around macroeconomic imbalances, including their connection to overcapacity,” Yellen said in a statement. “I intend to use this opportunity to advocate for a level playing field for American workers and firms,” she added.

Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the U.S., responded that the claim of overcapacity is “untenable” because “globally, high-quality industrial capacity and new-quality productive forces are not excessive, but in dire scarcity,” he said in a post on X defining it as “a good thing” that China “can help the international community attain the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Paris Agreement goals.”