China has appointed a trade negotiation veteran as a senior negotiator at the Ministry of Commerce, filling a full ministerial post that had been vacant for two years. This shows that China is preparing for the incoming Biden administration.
U.S. Trade Representative Lighthizer, second from right, speaks with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, far left, during the opening session of U.S.-China trade talks at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House in Washington, D.C. (Jan. 30, 2019).
China’s Ministry of Commerce announced Wednesday that Yu Jianhua, 60, has taken up the post of international trade negotiator at the ministry. The post has been vacant since Fu Ziyin left at the end of 2018.
The announcement comes as the first phase of a trade deal with the U.S. is reached and President-elect Joe Biden is set to take office next week. Biden said last month that he would not immediately revise the trade deal with China, but plans to work with allies to develop a more coherent strategy toward China.
Yu, who has more than 30 years of trade policy experience and is one of China’s most senior trade negotiators, was first appointed deputy trade negotiator at the Commerce Ministry in 2013, and in that capacity he held talks with his U.S. counterparts in 2017 to protest the launch of the U.S. Section 301 investigation into China.
Later that year, he was reassigned as China’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and actively defended China’s policies in Xinjiang. He told a U.N. panel that claims that Uighur Muslims were being illegally detained were “contrary to the facts.
Yu was called back to the Commerce Ministry last April to serve a second term as its deputy international trade negotiator amid stalemate in U.S.-China trade talks. With his new appointment announced Wednesday, he will work alongside new Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and Deputy International Trade Negotiator Wang Shouwen on trade matters.
Analysts believe that the Chinese government’s negotiating team lacks expertise on major trade negotiation issues. With Yu’s appointment, China is attempting to begin to address the problems posed by its inexperience in trade negotiations.
The mismatch in experience between the Chinese and U.S. trade teams is one of the many obstacles to negotiations between the two sides. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He has led China’s trade negotiations since 2018, a move that effectively marginalized the Ministry of Commerce, which has traditionally been responsible for government trade relations.
Liu He’s team is composed mainly of bankers and economists, with few members from the Commerce Ministry and limited experience on trade issues. In contrast, the U.S. team, composed mainly of trade lawyers, outperformed the Chinese representatives in terms of familiarity with trade policy. Both U.S. Trade Representative Lighthizer and Biden’s nominee, Trade Representative Dai Qi, have extensive experience in handling government trade matters.
Resolving trade disputes with the United States is a top priority for China. Facing pressure from the United States to impose tariffs on more than $300 billion in Chinese goods each year, China signed a deal a year ago agreeing to increase its purchases of U.S. goods and services by $200 billion over two years and to ease market access.
The need for China to struggle to maintain economic growth under the weight of a recurring new crown epidemic and debt problems has increased pressure on leaders to convince the new U.S. administration to lower tariffs and help China’s manufacturing sector recover.
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