China’s ‘Surprise’ New Trade Rep A Likely Effort At Backchanneling ‘Breakthrough’ With Trump

We reported earlier in the day that China has opened the door for reengaging President Trump in trade talks, which has involved Beijing laying out a set of preconditions for resuming negotiations before the tariff war spirals further.

Key to this last-minute attempt at a reset and rare bright spot of late, as we highlighted, is that China has just appointed a new top trade negotiator in a likely sign Beijing is seeking a final breakthrough moment with Washington. Regional Asian media is confirming that Li Chenggang will replace 59-year-old Wang Shouwen, the latter who became known for deep involvement negotiations for the 2020 US-China trade deal as a former assistant commerce minister.

58-year old Li has served as China’s ambassador to the Geneva-based World Trade Organization (WTO) from 2021. He’s also held several key jobs in the commerce ministry since 2010.

Has new blood been brought in to break the impasse in negotiations? Time for he and Commerce Secretary Lutnick to sit in a room and drill down?… It appears time for a quicker route of backchanneling the trade crisis… away from the cameras.

One analyst, Alfredo Montufar-Helu, who is senior adviser to the China Center at US-based research group The Conference Board, has observed of Li, “Probably his experience in Geneva means that he has established linkages with key stake holders – their governments including the US.” The same analyst also told Reuters:

“It might be that in the view of China’s top leadership, given how tensions have continued escalating, they need someone else to break the impasse… and finally start negotiating.”

Rather than just a standard or career advancement move, “This is certainly a very abrupt and potentially disruptive change given how quickly trade tensions have escalated,” Montufar-Helu said.

Prior to government service, Li obtained a bachelor’s degree in law from Peking University and a master’s degree in the economics of law from the University of Hamburg in Germany, SCMP has reviewed. According to more from CNBC:

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng is the lead negotiator on China-U.S. trade, according to official documents. Previously, China’s former vice premier Liu He had held a similar role where he facilitated the trade talks with Trump’s last administration and eventually signed the Phase-One deal.

“Wang was a key supporting player last time around because of his position,” said Kenneth Jarrett, senior advisor at Albright Stonebridge Group. “Presumably the same will be true of Li if and when talks get off the ground,” he added.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday in some of the latest heated remarks, China’s Sheng Laiyun, Deputy Commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), warned that “We firmly oppose the US practice of tariff barriers and trade bullying.”

“It violates the economic laws and the principles of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), has a serious impact on the world economic order, and drags down the recovery of the world economy,” he said.

This after on Tuesday White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared that “The ball is in China’s court: China needs to make a dal with us, we don’t have to make a deal with them” – and now with China saying it will ignore the Trump White House’s “numbers game” and fight till the end amid certain goods reaching a 245% tariff as of Wednesday.