US treasury secretary Scott Bessent rebuked China’s top trade envoy, Li Chenggang, for allegedly acting “unhinged” and threatening to “unleash chaos” on the global system during an “uninvited” visit to Washington in August.
He claimed Mr Li’s August visit to Washington, DC, was unsanctioned and not initiated by the Trump administration.
“Perhaps that vice minister who showed up here with very incendiary language on August 28 … perhaps he’s gone rogue,” Mr Bessent said at a press conference on Wednesday.
“This individual was very disrespectful,” he added, after earlier calling him “unhinged”.
“He showed up uninvited in Washington and said, ‘China will cause global chaos if the port shipping fees go through’,” Mr Bessent said.
“Maybe he thinks he’s a wolf warrior,” he said, referring to a term used for aggressive Chinese diplomats.
Mr Bessent made the remarks as tensions flared over Beijing’s new export controls on rare-earth and critical minerals – measures that have disrupted US access to key components like magnets, batteries, and semiconductors.
In response, the US plans to introduce “price floors” and “forward buying” to shield supply chains and counter China’s market leverage.
During a separate event – CNBC’s “Invest in America” forum – Mr Bessent said of Mr Li’s visit: “There was a lower level trade person who was slightly unhinged here in August … threatening, saying China would unleash chaos on the global system if the US went ahead with our docking fees on Chinese ships, and this is something they clearly were planning all along.”
Mr Li, 58, was appointed China’s vice minister of commerce and chief trade envoy in April, soon after Mr Trump unveiled his sweeping Liberation Day tariffs. Working alongside Beijing’s top negotiator, He Lifeng, he has since played a central role in multiple rounds of high-stakes talks between the world’s two largest economies.
The vice minister holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Peking University in Beijing and a master’s degree in economics of law from the University of Hamburg in Germany.
The comments came days after president Donald Trump warned of an additional 100 per cent tariff on Chinese goods if Beijing doesn’t roll back its restrictions.
“If China wants to be an unreliable partner to the world, then the world will have to decouple,” Mr Bessent said.
“The world does not want to decouple. We want to de-risk. But signals like this are signs of decoupling, which we don’t believe China wants – and again, we do not want to decouple. We should work together to de-risk and diversify our supply chains away from China, as quickly as possible.”
Mr Trump’s planned 29 October meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping remains on schedule for now, despite the US president’s threats to cancel it.
“Ultimately, we are confident in the strong relationship between President Trump and President Xi. We’ve had substantial communication with the Chinese over the past few days and we believe that there will be more forthcoming this week,” Mr Bessent said.
“Chinese officials seldom go rogue, and those that do, tend to end up out of a job especially under Xi Jinping’s heavily centralised rule,” Neil Thomas, a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.
“So it’s highly unlikely that Li’s actions were anything other than approved by Xi in Beijing.”
The Independent has contacted China’s ministry of commerce for comment on Mr Bessent’s remarks about Mr Li.
Last month, Politico Magazine reported that Mr Bessent erupted at a Washington dinner after hearing that federal housing finance agency director William Pulte had allegedly been criticising him to Mr Trump.
At the event honouring podcaster Chamath Palihapitiya, Mr Bessent reportedly repeatedly threatened Mr Pulte, allegedly shouting, “Why the f*** are you talking to the president about me? F*** you. I’m gonna punch you in your f***ing face.” Club co-owner Omeed Malik tried to intervene; Mr Bessent insisted that one of the two men, him or Mr Pulte, be expelled before the dinner could continue.
The two men were then separated and seated at opposite ends of the table during dinner, according to the report.
