By Laurie Chen, Emma Farge and Michael Martina
BEIJING/GENEVA/WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) – When U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described China’s lead trade negotiator Li Chenggang as “unhinged” for breaching diplomatic niceties shortly before a critical summit in October, he painted a picture of an erratic junior bureaucrat who had “gone rogue.”
Neither a “wolf warrior” nor a wallflower, Li is a chain-smoking, porcelain-collecting career diplomat with an encyclopedic knowledge of trade law and excellent English who alternates between charm and delivering Beijing’s tough messages, sources say.
After playing a crucial role in steadying the U.S.-China trade relationship in 2025, he is set to be at the forefront of further negotiations this year. U.S. President Donald Trump has made clear he wants to visit China in April and said he would host President Xi Jinping for a state visit later in the year.
More than a dozen diplomats, businesspeople and current and former U.S. officials described the man at the heart of the world’s most important trade negotiations as smart and pragmatic, with a tough edge that helps China achieve its goals.
Trade officials and Western diplomats who have interacted with the vice commerce minister in recent months described him as commanding rooms. One American business figure said he had an “executive presence,” a contrast from the stereotypical Chinese bureaucrat: A stoic, script-bound delivery that allows little room for personal flair.
They said he is well-prepared, with a deep understanding of China’s economic structure and U.S. trade demands. One former U.S. official who negotiated with Li on an Obama-era investment deal called him a “rising star.”
From April through October, Li helped steer months of stop-start negotiations across European capitals – from Geneva to Stockholm to London – that tested the limits of economic diplomacy between the U.S. and China.
The 58-year-old, who earlier represented China at the World Trade Organization before taking on his current role, navigated subjects spanning export curbs on rare earths, agricultural purchases and semiconductor access – issues that underpin $660 billion in annual bilateral trade.
The October negotiations produced an uneasy truce that has held to this day, with China deferring expansive controls on rare earth exports for a year and agreeing to buy 12 million tons of U.S. soybeans by March.
“Li’s near-term priority is to maintain the bilateral trade truce and create a positive environment for Trump’s visit to China,” said Neil Thomas of the Asia Society, a New York-based think tank.
“The Chinese trade team’s biggest challenge is to get the Trump administration to relax more U.S. export controls without generating an overwhelming backlash in Washington.”
PUBLIC REBUKE
It was in the weeks ahead of the October talks that Li drew a public rebuke from Bessent when the Chinese negotiator sought meetings in Washington with officials who outranked him and “lectured” them about China’s position in the talks, according to four senior U.S. businesspeople briefed on the trip. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private exchanges.
Li tried to meet U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, one of the businesspeople told Reuters, but ended up speaking to Commerce Department Undersecretary William Kimmitt and a lower-level Treasury official who matched his rank in protocol terms, though they were not authorised to negotiate on trade with China, according to another person briefed on the exchanges.
Regardless, he still “read the riot act” to his counterparts and conveyed demands from China’s leadership to change their behaviour to get negotiations back on track, the person said.
In terms of ranking, Li is second only to the commerce minister, making him China’s No. 2 commerce official. Vice Premier He Lifeng remains Xi’s point person for overseeing the U.S.-China economic and trade relationship and is Bessent’s counterpart in terms of seniority.
In public remarks, Bessent later called Li “very disrespectful.” He also said Li threatened that China would “unleash chaos” on the global economic system if the U.S. imposed port-entry fees on Chinese vessels.
The comments, which included Bessent calling Li “unhinged,” threatened to derail a planned presidential summit in South Korea in October, after both sides took a series of retaliatory moves.
But Li and Bessent regrouped days later at the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur, where they hashed out a framework trade agreement that successfully deferred 100% tariffs on Chinese goods and expanded export controls on rare earths.
In response to Reuters questions on Li, a White House official said: “He did come uninvited in August and did seek meetings above his level, which were denied.”
The U.S. Commerce and Treasury departments did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. The WTO declined to comment. China’s commerce ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
ART LOVER
Born in rural Anhui province, Li read law at the elite Peking University as well as Germany’s University of Hamburg. He climbed the ranks at the Ministry of Commerce, including a period running its department of treaty and law from 2010 to 2017. In his current role, Li also oversees the export controls and anti-dumping probes that China uses with foreign companies to protect its rights and ensure a level playing field.
During his time as China’s WTO representative in Geneva from 2021 to 2025, Li was a prolific networker who regularly hosted dinners and smoked Chinese cigarettes with other ambassadors in between meetings, four WTO sources told Reuters.
At the weekends, Li frequently scoured Swiss flea markets for discounted Chinese porcelain and could identify which dynasty the items came from, they said.
Norway’s WTO ambassador Petter Olberg, who worked closely with Li, told Reuters he was “extremely well liked and respected” and “very constructive about seeking solutions.”
“He’s not one of those who shouts the loudest,” Olberg said. “He thinks things through. He would always listen before he spoke at meetings.”
As a token of his appreciation, Li threw a lavish farewell banquet for the Mauritian WTO representative at his residence in December 2024, Olberg and other attendees said.
Guests were served artfully presented hors d’oeuvres on plates hand-painted with karst mountains illustrating an ancient Chinese poem, according to a photograph provided by one attendee. A well-known poem by Tang dynasty scribe Li Bai celebrated the poet’s profound love of friendship over natural beauty.
CONTRASTING APPROACHES
At the WTO, Li’s tactics were not limited to poems and dinner parties. One aide recalled him getting “angry and agitated” while pursuing the Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement – a landmark deal that China played a key role in creating.
He is an advocate of Beijing’s efforts to reshape the multilateral trade order, pitching China as a stabilising force in the face of turmoil created by Trump’s tariffs, said the Beijing-based Western trade diplomat.
In negotiations with the U.S., he would have a good grasp of policy details and how to advance China’s aims under the WTO legal framework, said one Western trade diplomat who met Li multiple times last year.
Li’s competence in meetings has led some observers to say that China has a stronger, more cohesive team that is empowered to implement directives from the leadership.
One U.S. businessperson who met Li in September said Chinese negotiators “go in knowing what they can and cannot accept,” while their American counterparts require Trump’s final approval after negotiating a framework.
“Li is someone who skillfully deploys legal instruments in the trade war,” said Henry Gao, an associate law professor at Singapore Management University.
“I expect him to remain a leading figure in the U.S.-China trade negotiations for years to come.”
(Editing by Antoni Slodkowski and Thomas Derpinghaus)
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