Latest news with #HeLifeng
Wall Street Journal
4 hours ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
China's New Trade Negotiator Is Ready to Play Hardball
In its deepening face-off with the Trump administration, Beijing's trade negotiator has given a preview of Xi Jinping's chief objective for this trade war: It won't be like last time. In Geneva in mid-May, Vice Premier He Lifeng extracted a 90-day trade truce from a Trump team that had until then declined to pause a tariff blitz on China the way it had for other countries. The deal calmed the nerves of investors and markets around the world.
South China Morning Post
a day ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Smart money in US still bets on Beijing
Wall Street and Washington don't always see eye to eye, especially over China. The White House of Donald Trump and politicians from both major US parties constantly issue warnings and threats against Beijing. Corporate bosses, however, have a very different attitude. Unlike politicians, they have the bottom line to worry about. Sensing a division, top Chinese officials have launched a charm offensive to reassure Western investors, but especially Wall Street bosses, that the country is open for business. Actually it's even more welcoming today, despite the trade war, uncertainties about its 90-day tariff pause, and the threatened ban against Huawei's most advanced chips. Vice-Premier He Lifeng recently met Citigroup chairman John Dugan and Carlyle Group chief executive Harvey Schwartz in Beijing, and told them that the Chinese economy had shown 'strong resilience and great vitality'. It was the same point he passed on earlier to the chief executives of Apple, Nvidia and JPMorgan Chase. Dugan and Schwartz's meetings with He came back to back. That was perhaps not an accident. The bank's history in China dates back more than a century, and Carlyle was one of the first foreign private equity firms to invest in China from the early 2000s. It has been a profitable partnership, as the Chinese learned the workings of private capital and investment. China always remembers its old friends. And Carlyle has a habit of retaining the services of top US officials who have retired, so its unrivalled political network is important to Beijing. These top US bosses have reciprocated to China's goodwill. JPMorgan and Bank of America came under attack in April from the US House Select Committee on the CCP for being part of the team that underwrote the initial public offering of Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) in Hong Kong. Both banks ignored the warning, and CATL's successful IPO is so far the world's largest this year. Meanwhile, Jensen Huang, the Nvidia CEO, has publicly declared Washington's global chip curbs on China a failure, having only forced the country to advance rapidly its own chipmaking capabilities. Unlike Washington, America's corporate bosses understand the meaning of win-win.
IOL News
3 days ago
- Business
- IOL News
Trump and his 90-day panacea
It took a lot of humility from the President Donald Trump administration to squeeze in a meeting with the Chinese delegation in Geneva led by the Vice Premier, He Lifeng. THE secret meeting in Geneva between the US and China was indeed secret. It had to be. Either it's secrecy lay in the preparations leading up to the moment, including the contriving of the agenda, or it was in the venue. No matter. The fact of the matter is, the meeting was urgent and unavoidable. It took a lot of humility from the President Donald Trump administration to squeeze in a meeting with the Chinese delegation in Geneva led by the Vice Premier, He Lifeng. He was in Switzerland for a bilateral meeting. And the American delegation showed up for a brief one. The brevity of the encounter was reflective of secretive diplomatic artistry, and for its agenda and its outcomes, could not enjoy the description as negotiations. Armed with a memorandum to reduce the ad valorem tax on scheduled items to 10% except for the synthetic opioid fentanyl, which would remain at 20%, the US Treasury Secretary met his counterpart, exchanged pleasantries and signed the Memo. The memorandum seeks to engage the Chinese in many strategic areas where they could cooperate with the US or maintain channels of trade cooperation with minimum rancour. Realising the importance of a setting that would permit a series of meetings, each at different levels of political mandate, a period of three months was nominated. The desperation of the Trump administration is not only apparent but understandable as well. If the trip to West Asia represented a massive optics victory, it was dampened by the Palace in the Sky gift from Qatar. To his visible irritation, he constantly has to defend himself or the Department of Defence or both, depending on the discourtesy of the enquirer and the awkwardness of the moment. The Liberation Day strategy was supposed to have defined a US levelling up to a world that was ripping them off. The scientific mechanism to implement this economic objective was the recalibration calculus, whose science was familiar to neither science nor economics. The President's logic sought to prevail on the apparatus of state, and therefore of the world at large that the only way to equalise with a country that has a trade surplus with the US, $263 billion (R4.7 trillion) in the case of China, is to impose tariffs equal to such surplus. And while the shock to such illogicality registered in graduations, each more intense than the other, the Trump administration announced that they would negotiate with each of the countries on his chart who are lining up and begging the US for reprieve from the harshness of the tariffs or sanctions, if you will. When there were no long queues by world leaders pining for trade negotiations and relief, the embattled Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, announced that all the identified countries would be slapped with 10% tariffs across the board, an embarrassing failure of strategy if nought else. If the highest tariffs averaged 50%, China was slapped with a whopping 245%. It became apparent that the raison d'être of tariffs was a roundabout way to escalate the China containment strategy. China did not beg for mercy. It retaliated with its own tariffs by targeting those items that would hurt the US economy the most. President Xi Jinping was not bullied to pick up the phone and call President Trump. And therein lies the rub! When pressed on why the Chinese did not shiver in terror and humiliation and call for negotiations, the verbosity of the Donald became circumlocutory and evasive. But one way or the other, he was convinced, he would close the deal with China. And in Geneva, he did not close the type of deal he envisaged. He therefore gave it 90 days. Yet the President could not wait to get to the next stage of the containment strategy, and so soon thereafter, the US President unleashed a tirade, accusing the Chinese of violating an agreement they are still planning to have. It comes as no surprise that Scott Bessent went to Geneva with a 90-day validity of any discussion to be had. The Trump administration has a bewildering obsession with 90 days. If it was not the TikTok imbroglio, it was the USAID suspension of foreign activities or indeed all those policies that got ensnared in the fast-swirling vortex of 69 Executive Orders in 100 days. 90 days seem to define a government when its mind is not made, creating its own 90-day breathing space. The most intriguing question is what happens at the effluxion of the period, when inescapable reality imperatives meet policy indecision. In his inimitable style, the Don has a quixotic retort, no pun intended. 'We'll see what happens'! 90 days notwithstanding, the communique is suspiciously silent about sanctions, especially indirect secondary ones meant for trade with third countries, which the US deeply despises. The relationship between the tariffs negotiations and sanctions is deceptively subtle. Neither the Americans nor the Chinese made reference to them. But they are writ large, however, and tend to dominate the overburdened consciousness of a severely divided world. There is an added 25% ad valorem tax levied on countries purchasing oil from Venezuela. China happens to be the largest importer of Venezuelan oil. There is an added 100% ad valorem tax slapped on countries purchasing oil from Iran. And here too, China happens to be the largest importer of Iranian oil. And now the biggest punitive package ever contemplated in the history of tariffs or the US is contained in the Blumenthal-Graham-sponsored bill called the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025. It proposes to impose primary and secondary sanctions against Russia and anyone else buying goods from Russia. It will also impose 500% tariffs on any country that purchases oil and gas, and other refined products from Russia. Predictably, China happens to be the largest purchaser of Russian oil and gas. Within the context of the China containment strategy, which is a military manoeuvre dressed in trade garb, the trigger moment is likely to be in the South China Sea. China, for its part, is an uncooperative client. They have seen the unfolding of this bellicose script from afar. They have contemplated it with disdain, and in their remonstration, have retaliated with their own tariffs. What the effect of sanctions on tariffs shall be is a vexatious enquiry notorious for its tautology. Its implications, however, are horrifying to say the least. What would be the utility of tariff reduction to 10% if they have to go back to 1000% because of secondary sanctions imposed against countries doing business with Venezuela, Iran and possibly Russia? No need to ask. The Don already has the answer… We'll see what happens! * Ambassador Bheki Gila is a Barrister-at-Law. ** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, IOL, or Independent Media.
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Business Standard
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Why was India's strike on Pakistan called Operation Sindoor?
He Lifeng, a longtime associate of Chinese President Xi Jinping, is set to lead high-level trade discussions with the United States on Saturday in Switzerland. The Chinese vice premier, who has gradually earned a reputation among international investors as a capable troubleshooter, will meet US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and chief trade negotiator Jamieson Greer amid escalating trade tensions between the world's two largest economies, news agency Reuters reported. Over recent weeks, the US and China have imposed steep tariffs exceeding 100 per cent on each other's imports. While President Donald Trump has publicly called on Xi to discuss a potential agreement, observers believe any meaningful progress will depend on He, who manages Beijing's economic and trade policies with Washington, the news report said. From party loyalist to effective operator In interviews with Reuters, 13 foreign investors and diplomats who interacted with He over the past year described a notable transformation in the 70-year-old. Initially seen as a rigid party official with limited English skills and a tendency to stick to scripted remarks, He is now viewed as more self-assured and pragmatic. 'He has impressed them with his ability to get things done,' one US businessperson told Reuters, referencing the positive impression He left during a major business forum in Beijing last month. According to a review of his public engagements, He Lifeng has held over 60 meetings with foreign officials and executives in the past year — up from 45 in the 12 months after he became vice premier in March 2023. His wide-ranging influence includes oversight of China's financial sector, regulatory frameworks, and trade policy.
Time of India
6 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
China sends direct message to Donald Trump as Beijing rolls out red carpet for American financial institutions
Live Events FAQs (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Tariffs and trade have become bone of contention between two of the world's largest economies - China and the US. Amidst the feud, China's Vice Premier He Lifeng told Morgan Stanley Co-President Daniel Simkowitz that Beijing welcomes more U.S. financial institutions and long-term capital to deepen cooperation, the official Xinhua news agency Lifeng said at a meeting in Beijing that U.S. financial institutions, including Morgan Stanley, are welcomed to actively participate in the development of China's capital China approached the United Arab Emirates for a possible bilateral free trade deal, UAE's trade minister Thani Al Zeyoudi said on Wednesday, after an announcement of the launch of EU-UAE talks for a similar 2021, the UAE has initiated a raft of bilateral trade, investment and cooperation deals - called Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements - to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and bolster long-term growth may relax curbs on exports of rare earths for Chinese and European semiconductor firms and other companies in their supply chain, state media said on April, China put seven rare earths and related products on an export control list, forcing all exporters to apply for licences, regardless of the nationality of overseas customers.A1. Capital of China is Beijing.A2. Big US financial institution is Morgan Stanley.
