“I would not expect him to engage with his Russian counterparts in any way other than to forcefully refute any misrepresentations made by him during the meetings,” the official said. “And to be very direct in his criticism of Russia and Russia’s war.”
The official said Yellen has not yet held any meetings with her Chinese counterparts to make an announcement. Yellen said last week that she hoped to travel to China for high-level economic meetings, but the timing was uncertain as the State and Defense departments lead the US response to an incident involving a Chinese surveillance balloon earlier this month. Were staying
press for loan waiver
The official said that at the G20 meetings, Yellen would press China to “deliver quickly” on debt relief for crisis-hit low- and middle-income countries.
China is scheduled to participate in a debt roundtable discussion organized by host India, the IMF and the World Bank on February 25, which will focus on a wide range of issues that are creating hurdles in debt relief deals for Zambia, Sri Lanka and other countries.
An initial virtual meeting of the debt roundtable began on Friday with private creditors BlackRock and Standard Chartered participating.
Among the sticking points is China’s insistence that the World Bank and other multilateral lenders share in the pain of taking a loan “haircut”.
The official said Treasury would “love” to see a deal on the Zambian debt at the meetings, but the main aim of the roundtable is to ensure that a range of creditors and borrowers, including private sector lenders, understand all types of , and how to define, General treatment of creditors.
“I wouldn’t say that the sovereign debt roundtable is specifically about China. It’s about trying to make sure that we have a working common framework and a working way to treat that,” the official said. “