The New York Times on May 3 reported from Beijing that members of the Trump administration delegation who arrived in Beijing on May 3 for two days of high-level talks found that their Chinese official counterparts had limited experience in trade matters. The new team of top Chinese negotiators, few of whom come from the Commerce Ministry, is led by Liu He, an economist by training and a close adviser and longtime friend of President Xi Jinping. Senior Chinese officials and their advisers were quoted as saying that Chinese negotiators had a warm relationship with Steven Mnuchin, the US Treasury Secretary, who is a member of the American delegation. He was described as easy to talk to. Chinese officials said they felt less of a connection to the rest of the group, which includes, among others, Robert E. Lighthizer, the United States Trade Representative, who was described as brusque; Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser and longtime critic of China; Larry Kudlow, who leads the National Economic Council; and Wilbur Ross, the Commerce Secretary. In contrast to members of the US delegation many of whom are comfortable with the fine points of trade policy, many of China’s top trade negotiators are now economists and bankers with little practical experience in trade matters. The Commerce Ministry’s two main officials for trade talks with the United States, veterans who have negotiated with Washington since the 1990s, were each awarded ambassadorships last year and dispatched to Europe. On the Chinese side, the rise of economists and bankers is part of a broad reshuffling meant to consolidate the Communist Party’s political power, but even the trade negotiations office has effectively been sidelined by a Communist Party group  called the Central Commission on the Economy and Finance and led by Liu He. The commission largely lacks trade lawyers. According to NYT, reports indicated slim chances that the talks would yield major progress  and China’s official news agency, Xinhua, reiterated Beijing’s stance that should a trade war break out, the country was better prepared thanks to its centralized leadership, strong domestic consumer base and greater desire to protect the current structure of trade.

At a three-day Tsinghua University seminar the seminar over the week-end about economic policy, Chinese officials also struck a defiant tone. Peng Guangqian, a retired Major General who remains an influential military strategist, said, “President Trump wants to curb our development.”