Bessent Calls China Official 'Unhinged' and 'Gone Rogue'

Name: Bessent Calls China Official 'Unhinged' and 'Gone Rogue'
Uploaded: 2025-10-16T03:57:37.000Z
Description: Bessent named one Chinese trade representative publicly for the second time in two consecutive days

Bessent named one Chinese trade representative publicly for the second time in two consecutive days

Mary Man

Published: 10/15/2025, 3:17:12 PM EDT

During Wednesday’s press conference, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called out a Chinese trade representative publicly for the second time in two consecutive days for his very “disrespectful” behavior and perhaps having “gone rogue.”

One day before the conference, Bessent said Li Chenggang, serving as China’s international trade representative, was “slightly unhinged” in an interview with CNBC.

Li, 58, a former assistant commerce minister during the first administration of President Donald Trump, took over from Wang Shouwen as China’s International Trade Negotiator and Vice Minister of Commerce in April.

Bessent told CNBC that Li threatened that the United States would face a heavy price if it didn’t comply with Beijing’s wishes.

“[Li was] threatening, saying that China would unleash chaos on the global system if the U.S. went ahead with our docking fees for Chinese ships.”

“This is clearly something that they were planning all along,” Bessent said, but the United States still hopes “things can de-escalate” with China.

At Wednesday’s conference, when asked if Li’s aggression was because of political battles inside the Chinese negotiating team or a sort of “good cop, bad cop” strategy, Bessent said perhaps Li has “gone rogue” with his “incendiary language.”

“This individual was very disrespectful,” he said. In the past four rounds of talks with China in Geneva, London, Stockholm, and Madrid, both sides approached with respect, but this time the uninvited Li applied a different harsh narrative with the threat of possible “global chaos.”

“I don’t believe that China wants to be an agent of chaos,” Bessent said.

Li visited Washington in August and met with U.S. officials in Washington to discuss Sino-U.S. economic and trade issues.

The Financial Times also reported that Li had threatened Washington during his visit this summer.

“This is a sign of how weak their economy is, and they want to pull everybody else down with them,” Bessent told the Financial Times in an interview on Monday.

Bessent said China’s controls on the export of rare earths signaled fragility in its own economy: “They are in the middle of a recession/depression, and they are trying to export their way out of it.”

Li’s predecessor Wang was also regarded as a tough negotiator and had clashed with U.S. officials in previous meetings, said a source in Beijing’s foreign business community. “He’s a bulldog, very intense,” said an unnamd source, reported Reuters.

China’s move comes right before an upcoming meeting between President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping.

Beijing announced on Oct. 9 that it would ban exports of rare earth materials for military purposes—the first time it has singled out that specific application. The United States relies on rare earth magnets for key weapons systems. Trump has countered by imposing 100 percent tariffs on Chinese goods, effective Nov. 1.