BEIJING, June 2 (Reuters) - The United States and China will inaugurate their cabinet-level Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington in the last week of July, the U.S. Treasury said on Tuesday.
The forum is a reincarnation in a broader format of the Strategic Economic Dialogue set up by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who used the forum to engage Beijing on an array of issues critical to longer-term bilateral relations.
Talks under the umbrella of the SAED will take place once a year in alternate capitals, the White House said in April. Meetings under Paulson's initiative were every six months. [ID:nL1958823]
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan will lead the economic track of the SAED; parallel talks on strategic and security issues will be under the leadership of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo.
The Treasury made the announcement as Geithner concluded two days of talks in Beijing at which he provided reassurances that China's vast holdings of dollar-denominated assets were safe from the risk of inflation or dollar depreciation. [ID:nPEK184562] (Reporting by Glenn Somerville; Writing by Alan Wheatley; Editing by Ken Wills)