TAIPIEI, TAIWAN – China named Li Chenggang as a new commercial negotiator on Wednesday, a key figure in talks to resolve the climbing of the tariff war with the United States, replacing the veteran negotiator Wang Shouwen.
Li, 58, who previously was deputy Minister of Commerce during the first term of American president Donald Trump, was appointed representative of Chinese international trade and vice-minister of trade, according to the Chinese Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.
Li recently represented China at the World Trade Organization.
It was not clear if Wang, 59, who assumed the role No. 2 at the Ministry of Commerce in 2022, had taken a position elsewhere. His name was no longer part of the ministry management team.
The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Asia radio on change.
Li, who studied in Germany, previously held management positions at the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, in particular as deputy director general in commercial and legal services. He became deputy minister of trade in 2016.
In 2021, he was appointed Ambassador of China to the World Trade Organization and was also deputy representative of the United Nations in Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland.
“The United States’s unilateralist approach openly violates the WTO rules, exacerbates economic uncertainty, disrupts world trade and can even overthrow the multilateral trade-based trade system,” said Li at an WTO meeting in February in Geneva.
“China firmly opposes this and urges the United States to abolish its unjustified practices,” he said, warning that such movements have triggered “tariff shocks” in the world.
The decision comes as commercial tensions between the two largest economies in the world continue to degenerate. Since the beginning of April, the United States and China have been locked in a cycle of reprisal rates.
On Wednesday, the White House announced that a “up to 245%” rate had been imposed on Chinese imports due to the “reprisal actions” of China.
“The ball is in the Chinese court. China has to face us. We do not have to conclude an agreement with them,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday.
The appointment also comes in the middle of the tour of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Southeast Asia, where he increased the rhetoric of unity in the face of protectionism and the shocks of the world order.
During a state dinner in Putrajaya with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, XI said that China would work with regional partners to counter global instability.
“Faced with the shocks of world order and economic globalization, China and Malaysia will be held with countries in the region to fight against the currents of geopolitical confrontation, as well as the counter-counds of unilateralism and protectionism,” said Xi.
China has promised, said Xi, to provide more important access to the market to Malaysia and Vietnam.
“Together, we will protect the luminous perspectives of our Asian family,” he said.
Edited by Tajun Kang and Stephen Wright.