Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was in China over the weekend for some of the highest

profile talks yet between the Chinese government and the Biden administration.

As a fierce struggle over the future of the world economy plays out, the United States has

maintained the Trump-era tariffs and is seeking to diminish China's role in global trade.

Will the two largest world economies decouple?

We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded

impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but the crimes of the working class,

and the crimes of big business. I'm Walter Smolerick, filling in for Brian Becker.

The Socialist Program brings you content three days a week thanks to the support of our patrons

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Richard Wolfe is the co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work and the author of many books,

the latest being The Sickness is the System, when capitalism fails to save us from pandemics or itself,

and check out all of his work at r d wolf.com.

So Professor Wolfe, this was a major trip several days. Janet Yellen met with a host of

political and economic leaders in China. She was, of course, coordinating with U.S. businesses

very closely.

What do you think the real purpose of this trip was?

Well, I think it is a chapter in an ongoing saga, and that it's important for Americans

to understand what that saga is, and that will avoid the problem of getting too excited about

this or that chapter because there's a lot of hemming and hoeing and backwards and forwards.

So let's get to the basic question.

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