Small steps Washington and Beijing are back on the line... for now

When Janet Yellen left Beijing last Sunday after four days of talks, the US treasury secretary in effect admitted that the delegation achieved its main objective simply by sitting down with top Chinese officials.

- Emma Graham-Harrison

After years of dangerous and deepening separation between the people running the world's two biggest economies, they were finally back in a room together.

At a brief press conference, Yellen listed her hopes. They included something that a decade ago would have been taken for granted: regular "senior-level diplomacy" between Washington and Beijing.

The meetings between Yellen and Chinese financial officials were particularly urgent, given there is a changing of the guard in Beijing. Personal relationships between the US political elite and outgoing Chinese decision-makers are being rendered obsolete.

Yellen's visit is part of a broader push to put ties back on what she called a "surer footing". She was following the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who last month led the first senior US delegation to China in more than three years.

Now the two sides are talking again, will their diplomacy aim only to stave off crisis, or can they use it to make constructive progress in a difficult relationship?