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 immediate attention last month, when he became China’s trade representative.
Li worked as Beijing’s envoy to the World Trade Organization in Geneva since February 2021. Prior to that, he spent more than 20 years in the Commerce Ministry’s treaty-and-law department, and in divisions in charge of trade barrier-related issues, including anti-dumping probes. That gave him the deepest specific trade experience of anyone yet to hold the trade representative job.
‘Delicious’ dishes
On Sunday, Li fielded the lion’s share of the questions at a press briefing following the negotiations with the U.S. team.
He also had arguably the most memorable line of the evening, when pressed by reporters whether an expected Sino-U.S. joint statement would be released ahead of Monday’s stock-market open:
“As we say back in China, if the dishes are delicious, the timing doesn’t matter.” Whenever the statement is released, “it’s going to be good news for the world,” Li said.
Li is a tough, smart, and patient negotiator, according to the recollections of Keith Rockwell, a former WTO spokesman who engaged with Li when he was China’s ambassador to that organization. He “knew his stuff” and “didn’t allow the U.S. to push him around,” Rockwell said.
“He knows the WTO rulebook and he knows how to interact with American negotiators,” said Rockwell. “Beijing has made a very astute decision to put him in this position.”
Li also built a reputation as a witty interlocutor who was strong on substance when he led China’s negotiations with Barack Obama’s administration to hammer out a bilateral investment treaty.
Christopher Adams, who served as senior coordinator of China affairs at the U.S. Treasury during the Obama and Trump administrations after being the USTR’s representative in Beijing, sat opposite Li during multiple negotiations.
Next meeting
“I knew him as a tough but constructive and resourceful negotiator, well respected by U.S. officials who got to know him,” said Adams, who is now a senior adviser in Washington for law firm Covington & Burling. “I would expect him to play a key role in the negotiations going forward.”
Li will be representing China at an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum gathering of trade ministers in Jeju, South Korea, later this week, according to a South Korean government official, who asked not to be identified. That could provide another opportunity for him to interact with Greer, who is attending the same event.
As for He’s other lieutenant in Geneva, Vice Finance Minister Liao, 56, is one of the few sitting top economic officials who were directly involved in the trade talks during Trump’s first presidency. He’s held his current position since 2018.
Liao’s mandate includes overseeing the State Council’s Office of the Customs Tariff Commission, which is responsible for drafting laws and regulations on import taxes and making tariff-negotiation plans. He also served as a deputy director of the office of the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs—a top economic policy decision-making body—for five years.
Another fluent English speaker, Liao holds a master’s degree from Cambridge University and was Beijing’s point person for the China-U.S. Economic Working Group—a body set up in 2023 for regular dialogue with the Biden administration. Like Li, he’s a graduate of China’s prestigious Peking University.
Liao was once a folk singer in college, perhaps an early sign of the confidence and composure he now brings to the diplomatic stage.
