China’s surprisingly quick agreement with the U.S. to wind back punitive tariff rates put a spotlight on a Chinese negotiating team that features decades worth of technical trade experience alongside a top aide of President Xi Jinping.
While Vice Premier He Lifeng, a longtime associate of China’s leader, has been described by some observers as lacking the international experience of his predecessor, Harvard Kennedy School-trained Liu He, he brought with him to Geneva a team well prepared to take on U.S. counterparts.
The crew engaging with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was on public display for the first time Sunday, with Vice Commerce Minister Li Chenggang and Vice Finance Minister Liao Min flanking 70-year-old He, in a large wood-paneled press hall at China’s World Trade Organization mission in Geneva.
The two vice ministers are veteran negotiators deeply familiar with the technicalities of trade and financial markets, have had years of engagement with Americans, and studied abroad. Their practical expertise combines with political power, as He is China’s top economic czar and a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo. The setup ensures the negotiators have both the authority and competence to hold their ground as talks get tougher, with the clock ticking on a 90-day pause on higher tariffs set to take effect by May 14.
“He Lifeng may not be the biggest trade expert, but they have a huge team of experts who can inform the delegation,” said Victor Shih, a professor of political science at the University of California San Diego. “China has been studying this problem for a very long time—the potential for U.S. protectionism and implications that it would have on the entire supply chain.”
He has known Xi since the 1980s, when they worked as government officials in the coastal city of Xiamen. He in 2023 replaced Liu, who was China’s chief negotiator in the trade war during President Donald Trump’s first term at the White House.
Unlike Liu, who spoke English and studied business at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, in the early 1990s before going to Harvard, He spent decades working first in China’s rich eastern regions. He later worked at China’s top national economic-planning agency.
By contrast, the Commerce vice minister, Li, 58, has a Master of Laws from the University of Hamburg in Germany, and speaks good English. He attracted…
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