China yesterday unexpectedly appointed a new trade negotiator key in any talks to resolve the escalating tariff war with the United States, replacing trade tsar Wang Shouwen with its envoy to the World Trade Organisation.
Li Chenggang, 58, a former assistant commerce minister during the first administration of US President Donald Trump, takes over from Wang, the human resources and social security ministry said in a statement.
It was unclear if Wang, 59, who assumed the No 2 role at the commerce ministry in 2022, had taken up a post elsewhere. His name was no longer on the ministry’s leadership team, according to the ministry’s website as of yesterday.
The ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the change, which was not explained in the human resources ministry’s statement.
Wang was regarded as a tough negotiator and had clashed with US officials in previous meetings, said a source in Beijing’s foreign business community.
“He’s a bulldog, very intense,” said the source, declining to be named.
The shift within the top leadership at the commerce ministry comes as Beijing pursues a hardline stance in an intensifying trade war with Washington triggered by Trump’s steep tariffs on items imported from China.
The abrupt change also took place in the middle of President Xi Jinping’s tour of Southeast Asia to consolidate economic and trading ties with close neighbours amid the standoff with the US.
Commerce Minister Wang Wentao was among senior officials flanking Xi on his visit to Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia this week. Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a senior adviser to the Conference Board’s China Centre, said the change was ‘very abrupt and potentially disruptive’.
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