China unexpectedly appointed a new trade negotiator key on Wednesday to resolve the escalating tariff war with the United States, replacing experienced trade tsar Wang Shouwen and bringing his envoy to the World Trade Organization.
Li Chenggang, 58, was a former assistant secretary of Commerce during the first administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who took over as the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau from 59-year-old Wang.
It is unclear whether Wang’s role as the second-placed Ministry of Commerce in 2022 has held a position elsewhere. As of Wednesday, the department’s website said his name was no longer the department’s leadership team.
The ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on the change, which was not explained in the Human Resources Department’s statement.
Sources from Beijing’s foreign business community said Wang was considered a tough negotiator and clashed with U.S. officials at previous meetings. “He is a very intense bulldog,” the source said.
As Beijing has adopted a strong trade attitude in exacerbating Washington’s trade war, Trump’s strong position on tariffs triggered by goods imported from China is that Beijing has taken a strong position in intensifying the trade war.
Sudden changes also occurred in the middle of President Xi Jinping’s trip to Southeast Asia to consolidate economic and transactional relations with close neighbors in a standoff with the United States
Commerce Minister Wang Wenao visited Vietnam, one of the top officials in Malaysia and Cambodia this week.
Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a senior adviser at the Center for Conference Committee, said the change was “very sudden and potentially destructive” given the rapid escalation of trade tensions and the prince’s experience of negotiating from the first Trump administration.
“We can only speculate why this happened at this exact moment; however, given China’s highest leadership, given how tensions continue to escalate, they need others to break the deadlock in which the two countries find themselves and eventually start negotiations,” he said.
Unlike other countries that have responded to Trump’s punitive tariff plans by multiple other countries by seeking bilateral deals with Washington, Beijing has raised its own taxes on U.S. goods and has not sought negotiations but negotiated based on mutual respect and equality.
Washington said on Tuesday that Trump is willing to make a deal with China, but Beijing should take the first step, insisting that China needs “our money.”
“Tariff shock”
At the WTO meeting in Geneva in February, Lee criticized the tariffs of U.S. trading partners, including China, warning that such a move triggered a “tariff shock” to the world.
“The US’s unilateral approach blatantly violates WTO rules, exacerbates economic uncertainty, undermines global trade and may even subvert the rules-based multilateral trading system. China firmly opposes this and urges the US to abolish its illegal acts.”
Lee has held several key jobs in the Ministry of Commerce, such as overseeing the treaty, the department of law and fair trade, and has academic backgrounds at elite Peking University and the University of Hamburg in Germany.
“From his resume, Lee is a typical Chinese technologist with extensive experience in the Ministry of Commerce and the WTO on trade issues,” said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the National University of Singapore. “This seems to be a regular promotion without any abnormalities, but now is clearly a sensitive period due to tensions in the United States-China.”
According to state media readings for the conference, Lee attended the China Private Entrepreneurs Forum on March 31 and was the “leader” of the Ministry of Commerce, one of the initial official tips for the conference, and one of the official tips for moving to a new role soon.
