US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent lashed out at a top Chinese trade official, saying he turned up in Washington recently uninvited and behaved in an “unhinged” fashion typical of Beijing’s so-called wolf warrior diplomats.
Bessent claimed Li Chenggang’s August visit to the US capital was not at the request of the Trump administration. “Perhaps the vice minister who showed up here with very incendiary language on August 28 has gone rogue,” the Treasury chief said Wednesday at a press conference.
“This individual was very disrespectful,” he added, after earlier calling him “unhinged” at a separate CNBC event.
China’s Commerce Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment on Bessent’s remarks.
Li, 58, was appointed as China’s vice minister of commerce and trade envoy in April, shortly after President Donald Trump released his sky-high Liberation Day tariffs. Together, with Beijing’s top trade negotiator, He Lifeng, Li has been at the forefront of several rounds of negotiations between the world’s two largest economies.
At the end of August, the Commerce Ministry said Li had made a trip to Washington where he met with treasury, commerce and trade officials. During that visit, he emphasized the “principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation,” according to the statement.
Bessent painted a different picture. The Treasury chief said Li had warned that China would “cause global chaos” if the US went ahead with plans for port fees for Chinese ships. “Maybe he thinks he’s a wolf warrior,” he said, referring to a term used for aggressive Chinese diplomats.
In criticizing Li, Bessent took aim at one of China’s most experienced and respected trade experts. The vice minister has a Master of Laws from the University of Hamburg in Germany.
Li also worked as Beijing’s envoy to the World Trade Organization in Geneva from February 2021 till his April appointment. He’s a tough but patient negotiator, according to the recollections of Keith Rockwell, a former WTO spokesman who engaged with Li during his time at the organization.
He’s also built a reputation as a witty interlocutor who is strong on substance when he led China’s negotiations with Barack Obama’s administration to hammer out a bilateral investment treaty.
He “knew his stuff” and “didn’t allow the US to push him around,” Rockwell told Bloomberg News earlier this year.
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