(Headline USA) Ever since Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ate mushrooms that can have psychedelic effects in Beijing last July, Chinese social-media users have been preoccupied with what she will eat next.
With Yellen was back in China this week, having stopped in Guangzhou and Beijing, many people were less interested in her dipmomacy than her dining decisions.
From her forays into Sichuan dumplings to Peking duck, mouth watering chicken or twice cooked pork—even Chinese politicians at the highest ranks of the party have taken notice of her popularity on the culinary arts scene.
Ahead of a highly anticipated bilateral meeting Sunday between Yellen and Premier Li Qiang at the Great Hall of People, he noted in his opening remarks that Yellen’s visit had “indeed drawn a lot of attention in society” with media covering her trip.
She prefers to dine among other patrons and doesn’t like partitions keeping her from other diners—making her silver hair highly recognizable when she’s out and about.
The use of her chopsticks at a restaurant in Guangzhou was also a particular observation.
A social-media account run by Chinese state media posted a catchy video of Yellen on her first night in China, eating with the U.S. ambassador and other officials at Tao Tao Ju, a Guangzhou restaurant that dates to 1880.
The post, one of the most viewed on the Weibo microblog app the next morning, praised Yellen for holding chopsticks well but added, “as a U.S. official, Yellen needs to know more about China than just food. Only by knowing more about China can we set right the American view of the world, of China, of China-U.S. relations.”
And during a Sunday meeting with Huang Yiping, the dean of Peking University, he joked that China has been watching the news of her arrival as well as her dining, to which Yellen interjected: “My chopstick skills!”
In the U.S., Yellen also often stops for fast food and at local eateries during domestic trips ahead of events to promote Biden administration policies like the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure law, and becomes the news.
A stop last November at In-N-Out burger in San Francisco before heading to the airport to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting also became a viral moment.
In China, Yellen’s very first viral moment happened when she unknowingly ate mushrooms than can become psychedelic when cooked improperly at a Yunnan restaurant called Yi Zuo Yi Wang during her first trip as Treasury secretary last July. Mushroom-gate went viral across the internet, and the restaurant has since dedicated a part of its menu to Yellen’s visit, where diners can order what she ate.
She told CNN at the time, “There was a delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later.”
During the 2023 visit—marred later that month by a major hacking scandal, in which China accessed the emails of Ambassador Nicholas Burns and other top State Department officials—Yellen was criticized for her submissive behavior to her Chinese counterparts.
The true purpose of the CCP’s preoccupation with Yellen’s food may, in fact, be a manipulative tactic to further entice the Cabinet official to let down her guard, or a propaganda tactic for subtly digging at the American policymakers’ casual approach in meetings where China is eager to gain an upper hand.
FBI Director Christopher Wray warned recently that China was seeking to implant malware on hundreds of private routers that would allow them to spy on U.S. officials, corporations and other unwitting victims.
It is unclear whether Yellen’s drug use may have posed a possible security threat. However, the success in dosing Yellen may suggest a degree of vulnerability and naïveté that negotiators are able to take advantage of as China moves aggressively to supplant the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency—a move that could further devastate the U.S. economy.
In China for a second time this week, Yellen hoped to make headway on the issue of what she calls Chinese overproduction of solar products, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries that she warns threaten global economic stability if left unchecked.
Former President Donald Trump likewise warned recently of a “blood bath” for the automobile industry if China succeeds in its plan to manufacture cheap electric vehicles in Mexico and then import them to the U.S.
This time around in Beijing, Yellen ate at Lao Chuan Ban, a popular Sichuan restaurant. She also had lunch with Beijing Mayor Yin Yong at the Beijing International Hotel.
On Monday evening, her last night in China, Yellen visited Jing-A Brewing Co. in Beijing—co-founded by an American—where she ordered a Flying Fist IPA, a beer made with American hops.
She took a sip and called it “excellent.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
