New US-China talks will address a top American complaint about Beijing's economic model, Yellen says

Yellen reveals key focus of us-china talks: addressing american grievances with beijing's economic model

GUANGZHOU, China (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Saturday that upcoming U.S.-China talks will tackle a top Biden administration complaint that Beijing's economic model and trade practices put American companies and workers at an unfair competitive disadvantage.

“I think the Chinese realize how concerned we are about the implications of their industrial strategy for the United States, for the potential to flood our markets with exports that make it difficult for American firms to compete,” Yellen told reporters after the announcement during her trip to China.

“It’s not going to be solved in an afternoon or a month, but I think they have heard that this is an important issue to us,” she said.

The two sides will hold “intensive exchanges” on more balanced economic growth, according to a U.S. statement issued after Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng held extended meetings over two days in the southern city of Guangzhou. They also agreed to start exchanges on combating money laundering. It was not immediately clear when and where the talks would take place.

Yellen, who arrived later in Beijing after starting her five-day visit in one of China's major industrial and export hubs, said the talks would create a structure to hear each other's views and try to address American concerns about manufacturing overcapacity in China.

China's official Xinhua News Agency said the two sides had agreed to discuss a range of issues including balanced growth of the United States, China and the global economy as well as financial stability, sustainable finance and cooperation in countering money laundering.

Xinhua said China had responded fully on the issue of production capacity, but the report did not provide details. China also expressed grave concern over American trade and economic measures that restrict China, according to the agency.

Chinese government subsidies and other policy support have encouraged solar panel and EV makers in China to invest in factories, building far more production capacity than the domestic market can absorb.

The massive scale of production has driven down costs and ignited price wars for green technologies, a boon for consumers and efforts to reduce global dependence on fossil fuels. But Western governments fear that that capacity will flood their markets with low-priced exports, threatening American and European jobs.

“It’s going to be critical to our bilateral relationship going forward and to China’s relationship with other countries that are important, and this provides a structured way in which we can continue to listen to one another and see if we can find a way forward that will avoid conflict," Yellen told reporters.

The exchanges on balanced growth and money laundering will be held under the framework of existing economic and financial working groups that were set up after Yellen met He in July.

Yellen struck a positive note on joint efforts to address U.S. concerns about Chinese companies selling goods to Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

“We think there’s more to do, but I do see it as an area where we’ve agreed to cooperate and we’ve already seen some meaningful progress,” she said.

Earlier state media coverage of her trip had characterized U.S. concerns about overcapacity as a possible pretext for tariffs. In a commentary published Friday night, Xinhua wrote that while Yellen’s trip is a good sign that the world’s two largest economies are maintaining communication, “talking up ‘Chinese overcapacity’ in the clean energy sector also smacks of creating a pretext for rolling out more protectionist policies to shield U.S. companies."

Yellen told reporters during an Alaska refueling stop en route to China that the U.S. “won’t rule out” tariffs to respond to China’s heavily subsidized manufacturing of green energy products.

The U.S. has made efforts through legislation and executive orders to wean itself off certain Chinese technologies in order to build out its domestic manufacturing capabilities. Many members of the White House and Congress view the actions as important to maintaining national security.

The $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act passed in 2022 aims to boost the semiconductor industry and scientific research in a bid to create more high-tech jobs in the United States and help it better compete with China. Additionally, last August, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order to block and regulate high-tech U.S.-based investments going toward China.

Yellen will hold meetings in Beijing with more senior officials and economists on Sunday and Monday.

Moritsugu reported from Beijing.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks to the journalists after meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, at the Guangdong Zhudao Guest House in southern China's Guangdong province, Saturday, April 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, center, speaks to the journalists after meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, not shown, at the Guangdong Zhudao Guest House in southern China's Guangdong province, Saturday, April 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks to the journalists after meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, at the Guangdong Zhudao Guest House in southern China's Guangdong province, Saturday, April 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

Journalists film U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, right, and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng arrive for a one-to-one meeting at the Guangdong Zhudao Guest House in southern China's Guangdong province, Saturday, April 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, left, shakes hands with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng as they arrive for a one-to-one meeting at the Guangdong Zhudao Guest House in southern China's Guangdong province, Saturday, April 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

A hostess fills up tea cups for officials near the U.S. and China's national flags ahead of the bilateral meeting between U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, at the Guangdong Zhudao Guest House in southern China's Guangdong province, Saturday, April 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, right, and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, center, arrive to a bilateral meeting at the Guangdong Zhudao Guest House in southern China's Guangdong province, Saturday, April 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

Embassy staffers ask journalists to leave the hall after U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng arrive to a bilateral meeting at the Guangdong Zhudao Guest House in southern China's Guangdong province, Saturday, April 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, third from left, and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, fourth from right, sit for a bilateral meeting at the Guangdong Zhudao Guest House in southern China's Guangdong province, Saturday, April 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, center, prepares her documents as she arrives to a bilateral meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, at the Guangdong Zhudao Guest House in southern China's Guangdong province, Saturday, April 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, center, arrives to a bilateral meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng at the Guangdong Zhudao Guest House in southern China's Guangdong province, Saturday, April 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, right, and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng arrive to a bilateral meeting at the Guangdong Zhudao Guest House in southern China's Guangdong province, Saturday, April 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

With some help from artificial intelligence, country music star Randy Travis, celebrated for his timeless hits like “Forever and Ever, Amen” and “I Told You So," has his voice back.

In July 2013, Travis was hospitalized with viral cardiomyopathy, a virus that attacks the heart, and later suffered a stroke. The Country Music Hall of Famer had to relearn how to walk, spell and read in the years that followed. A condition called aphasia limits his ability to speak — it's why his wife Mary Travis assists him in interviews. It's also why he hasn't released new music in over a decade, until now.

“What That Came From," which released Friday, is a rich acoustic ballad amplified by Travis' immediately recognizable, soulful vocal tone.

Cris Lacy, Warner Music Nashville co-president, approached Randy and Mary Travis and asked: “'What if we could take Randy's voice and recreate it using AI?,'" Mary Travis told The Associated Press over Zoom last week, Randy smiling in agreement right next to her. “Well, we were all over that, so we were so excited.”

“All I ever wanted since the day of a stroke was to hear that voice again."

Lacy tapped developers in London to create a proprietary AI model to begin the process. The result was two models: One with 12 vocal stems (or song samples), and another with 42 stems collected across Travis' career — from 1985 to 2013, says Kyle Lehning, Travis' longtime producer. Lacy and Lehning chose to use “Where That Came From,” a song written by Scotty Emerick and John Scott Sherrill that Lehning co-produced and held on to for years. He believed it could best articulate the humanity of Travis' idiosyncratic vocal style.

“I never even thought about another song,” Lehning said.

Once he input the demo vocal (sung by James Dupree) into the AI models, “it took about five minutes to analyze," says Lehning. “I really wish somebody had been here with a camera because I was the first person to hear it. And it was stunning, to me, how good it was sort of right off the bat. It’s hard to put an equation around it, but it was probably 70, 75% what you hear now.”

“There were certain aspects of it that were not authentic to Randy’s performance,” he said, so he began to edit and build on the recording with engineer Casey Wood, who also worked closely with Travis over a few decades.

The pair cherrypicked from the two models, and made alterations to things like vibrato speed, or slowing and relaxing phrases. “Randy is a laid-back singer," Lehning says. “Randy, in my opinion, had an old soul quality to his voice. That's one of the things that made him unique, but also, somehow familiar.”

His vocal performance on “What That Came From” had to reflect that fact.

“We were able to just improve on it,” Lehning says of the AI recording. “It was emotional, and it's still emotional.”

Mary Travis says the “human element," and “the people that are involved” in this project, separate it from more nefarious uses of AI in music.

“Randy, I remember watching him when he first heard the song after it was completed. It was beautiful because at first, he was surprised, and then he was very pensive, and he was listening and studying," she said. "And then he put his head down and his eyes were a little watery. I think he went through every emotion there was, in those three minutes of just hearing his voice again.”

Lacy agrees. “The beauty of this is, you know, we’re doing it with a voice that the world knows and has heard and has been comforted by,” she says.

“But I think, just on human terms, it’s a very real need. And it’s a big loss when you lose the voice of someone that you were connected to, and the ability to have it back is a beautiful gift.”

They also hope that this song will work to educate people on the good that AI can do — not the fraudulent activities that so frequently make headlines. “We’re hoping that maybe we can set a standard,” Mary Travis says, where credit is given where credit is due — and artists have control over their voice and work.

Last month, over 200 artists signed an open letter submitted by the Artist Rights Alliance non-profit, calling on artificial intelligence tech companies, developers, platforms, digital music services and platforms to stop using AI “to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists." Artists who co-signed included Stevie Wonder, Miranda Lambert, Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, Peter Frampton, Katy Perry, Smokey Robinson and J Balvin.

So, now that “Where That Came From” is here, will there be more original Randy Travis songs in the future?

“There may be others,” says Mary Travis. “We’ll see where this goes. This is such a foreign territory. There's likely more on the horizon.”

“We do have other tracks,” says Lacy, but Warner Music is being as selective. “This isn't a stunt, and it's not a parlor trick,” she added. “It was important to have a song worthy of him.”

FILE - Travis Tritt, left, Randy Travis, center left, Mary Travis, center right, and Ricky Traywick, right, appear on stage at the "1 Night. 1 Place. 1 Time.: A Heroes and Friends Tribute to Randy Travis" on Feb. 8, 2017 in Nashville, Tenn. (Photo by Laura Roberts/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Randy Travis, left, and Mary Davis appear at the 58th annual Academy of Country Music Awards on Thursday, May 11, 2023, in Frisco, Texas. (AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter, File)

FILE - Randy Travis attends the announcement of the Country Music Hall of Fame inductees in Nashville, Tenn., on March 29, 2016. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)