In Donald Trump’s first time period, US commerce negotiators encountered a well-known interlocutor in China: Liu He, a Harvard-educated, English-speaking adviser to Xi Jinping who supported lots of the similar financial reforms that Washington had looked for years.
Now, because the US and China seek for a path again from an outright commerce warfare, Beijing’s delegation will likely be led by vice-premier He Lifeng, a Xi acolyte anticipated to toe a agency line of resistance to Trump’s commerce warfare.
“He’ll probably be a more difficult interlocutor for the Americans,” mentioned Andrew Gilholm, head of China evaluation at consultancy Management Dangers.
Whereas Trump claimed on Thursday that “China very much wants to make a deal”, Gilholm added that “China’s willing and able to take the political pain longer than the White House will be.”
Xi’s commerce tsar will meet Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and US commerce consultant Jamieson Greer in Geneva on Saturday within the first high-level, face-to-face talks since Trump’s barrage of “liberation day” tariffs final month. Since then, the US and China have ratcheted up levies, threatening an efficient embargo between the world’s two largest economies.
He, 70, is a part of a core group of occasion apparatchiks whose connection to Xi dates again many years. He labored beneath Xi in Fujian province, and was elevated to vice-premier in March 2023 when Xi began his unprecedented third five-year time period as China’s president.
Neil Thomas, an professional on elite Chinese language politics on the Asia Society Coverage Institute think-tank, mentioned this shut affiliation was “positive” for the negotiations. “It’s important that He Lifeng knows Xi personally for these talks to be successful and to credibly represent the direction that Xi Jinping wants to take US-China relations,” Thomas mentioned.
Prior to now yr his concentrate on international engagements has elevated markedly, in accordance with one Chinese language political marketing consultant who requested to not be named, as Xi refocused the management’s efforts on addressing slowing financial progress.
He has held dozens of conferences with international officers and enterprise leaders in current months together with Goldman Sachs president John Waldron, Pfizer chair Albert Bourla, Apple boss Tim Prepare dinner and Nvidia founder Jensen Huang.
He has regularly appeared extra comfy in these conditions, in accordance with one individual aware of a few of the conferences, and his messaging has grow to be “friendlier” as Beijing urged US company leaders to assist affect the White Home in de-escalating tensions.
In his assembly with Huang, the vice-premier chatted about his household’s Hokkien background — a language spoken broadly in Fujian and Taiwan, together with by the tech billionaire, the individual mentioned.
However others who’ve met him mentioned that not like Liu, He seems to talk little English. Whereas many Chinese language officers typically refuse to talk international languages in formal conferences, choosing an interpreter, many do perceive English.
He comes throughout because the “archetypical Chinese technocrat”, pleasant, however assured of China’s strengths and considerably “aloof”, in accordance with an individual who has met him.
He studied economics and held senior positions in Fujian in addition to in Tianjin, within the nation’s north-east. His many years of expertise in “day to day economic issues” and tutorial background is “not always appreciated”, Thomas mentioned. “He’s not unfamiliar with economic and trade policy,” he added.
In 2014, he was elevated to vice-chair of China’s Nationwide Growth and Reform Fee, the highly effective state planner, in accordance with Minxin Pei, editor of China Leadership Monitor.
Three years later, He was promoted to NDRC chair. Throughout his time on the state planner, He oversaw the early years of the Belt and Street infrastructure plan, Xi’s hallmark international coverage initiative.
In late 2023, state media began referring to He as holding management positions in prime Communist occasion teams for monetary system oversight, alongside his authorities duties main financial and commerce affairs with the US.
Forward of his assembly with Bessent and Greer, He will likely be supported by Liao Min, a finance vice-minister and former member of Liu’s negotiating crew, and Li Chenggang, a European-educated former lawyer who final month was appointed Beijing’s consultant to the World Commerce Group.
Each are fluent English audio system and are deeply aware of Beijing’s efforts to brace its economic system towards potential commerce warfare shocks.
But analysts expressed doubt in regards to the probabilities of a breakthrough in Switzerland.
“All of this will ultimately be decided above them [He and Bessent],” mentioned Gilholm. “A lot of it comes down to whether Trump will be willing to accept another narrow, fragile, deficit-focused deal” within the mould of the “phase-one” deal agreed throughout the US president’s first time period.
Whereas Beijing seen Bessent as a “well-balanced professional” — in distinction to a few of the “extreme hawks” in Washington — He’s crew appeared to have been empowered to conduct simply an “initial engagement rather than a thorough negotiation”, mentioned Gao Jian, a Shanghai-based international coverage professional with the Middle for Worldwide Safety and Technique at Tsinghua College.
Forward of the talks, one among Beijing’s credos, he added, was that: “appeasement cannot buy peace, nor can compromise earn respect”.
Extra reporting by Cheng Leng in Hong Kong
