The hidden hand behind China’s US trade deal

So since Trump returned to office, U.S.-China relations have grown increasingly intense. Things hit a boiling point on April 2nd when he launched a global tariff offensive. Beijing retaliated with its own punitive measures, and state media fired back with a defiant propaganda video called Never Kneeling Down. But then came a stunning twist. Last week, or last weekend, in Geneva, Treasury Secretary Scott Benson met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, what followed shocked even the American delegation. Beijing made major concessions and showed an unexpected willingness to cooperate. The speed of the breakthrough was nothing short of extraordinary. So the real question is, what changed and what made China suddenly back down? So here's my take. Xi Jinping wasn't the one directing the Geneva talks. The real driver behind the deal, former Premier Wen Jiabao, who is a reformist and a party elder, quietly pulling the string from behind. And I'll give you three reasons why I believe it was Wen Jiabao and not Xi Jinping who was behind Geneva. The first is that the negotiation bears Wen Jiabao's fingerprints. His influence is unmistakable. And I'll discuss that from two angles. One is I'll compare the 2025 negotiation team to the 2018 one during trade war 1.0. And secondly, I'll go over Wen Jiabao's vision for U.S.-China trade relations. And then President Trump dropped a cryptic clue. And yes, rumor mill is spinning. And some of those whispers are worth listening to. So first things first, let's look at the negotiation team. So let's take a closer look at the names. So I have two individuals on the screen for you. So let's talk about Li Chenggang. He recently replaced Xi Jinping's man, Wang Xiaowen, as China's lead trade negotiator. Now Wang was a known hardliner with a poor reputation among Western officials. Li, by contrast, is a legal expert. He studied law at Beijing University, earned a master's in law and economics from the University of Hamburg, and has deep expertise in trade law. And here's the twist. Li was never promoted under Xi Jinping. He remained stuck at the vice ministerial level, largely because of his ties to the Hu Jintao faction, or the reformist faction. He went to college with Li Keqiang. So he's considered aligned with the reformist camp. Now the other gentleman, Liao Ming, the vice finance minister, is another heavyweight in trade policy. He holds a bachelor's and master's degree in economics from Beijing University, and an MBA from Cambridge University. He's published several books on global finance and rose through China's financial system, eventually overseeing tariffs. He's known to be extremely smart, played music in college, and speaks English fluently. Importantly, he has no known ties to Xi Jinping's faction. So both Li and Liao are in their 50s. They're younger than He Lifeng, who's 70 years old. And these two gentlemen were educated in the 1980s, when China's education system was still rigorous and competitive, not as corrupt as it is today. At the time, getting into Beijing University meant being at the top of your class. So these men are true technocrats, with strong academic backgrounds, and they're very different from many of Xi Jinping's political appointees. Now let's talk about Xu Datong. This man is currently the youngest vice minister of the public security ministry, and there are six of them. He's the youngest, and he ranks the third. He doesn't come from a public security background. He spent nearly 30 years working in Tianjin before being promoted to deputy governor and public security chief of Shaanxi province. And he has no clear factional ties, and was likely brought in to address the fentanyl issue. You see, while He Lifeng is a Xi Jinping loyalist, the other three men have no obvious links to Xi Jinping. And in the case of Li Chenggang, he's actually connected to the reformist faction. So this team is a very different lineup compared to the one led by Liu He in 2018. So let's look back at May 2018, when Liu He led a large delegation to the US. Who were in that group? Well, we had finance minister Liu Kun, commerce minister Zhong Shan, the governor of China's central bank, Yi Gang, and the vice chairman of NDRC, Ning Jizhe, and vice foreign minister. There's a vice foreign minister, there's a vice finance minister, and there's a vice commerce minister. So it was a high profile lineup full of big titles. It was more political theater than pragmatic diplomacy or negotiation. It was something very Xi Jinping. At the time, the Wall Street Journal noted that most of those officials had limited experience in trade negotiations and lacked deep knowledge of trade law, which made serious progress in negotiation difficult. This time it's different. The team is much smaller, but much more competent. So the small team is far more capable and far more professional than the group China sent seven years ago, which is why it's hard to believe that this lineup was chosen by Xi Jinping. And no, it has Wen Jiabao's fingerprints all over. And let me explain why. So now let's talk about Wen Jiabao. Wen Jiabao is part of China's reformist or opening up faction. He believes that the best way to resolve US-China tensions is through dialogue and not confrontation. So back in December 2003, he gave a rare interview to CNN, and that's where this picture was taken from. And the entire conversation was about trade. That interview was so important, and it was translated into Chinese and published on the website of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And here's what Wen said. He said, The rapid development of US-China economics and trade relations benefits both countries. Fifteen years ago, he said, bilateral trade was only $2.5 billion. This year it has exceeded $100 billion. So is this development only good for the US and not for China? Of course not. It benefits both nations and both peoples. So that win-win outlook has defined Wen Jiabao's approach to trade throughout his entire career. In another interview in 2010, he went even further. He openly acknowledged that corruption and inflation could threaten China's long-term stability. And then he said something unheard of for a senior CCP official. And he said, Freedom of speech is a necessity in every country. Now that's a big deal, especially from someone who sat at the very top of the regime. Even though Wen disagreed with US trade tactics, he offered thoughtful, logical responses and never denied China's own flaws. And this kind of honesty is rare inside the CCP. He also proposed raising the level of the joint US-China Trade Commission and creating a permanent mechanism to manage trade issues. So fast forward to now, US Treasury Secretary Scott Benson described the new arrangement as the Geneva Mechanism. So that was Wen Jiabao's vision coming to life. So Wen believes in solving disputes through steady negotiation and dialogue and not ideological struggle. And that's a stark contrast to Xi Jinping's zero-sum mindset. The reason the Geneva trade talks made such unexpected progress is because they were led, at least in spirit, and quite possibly in practice by Wen Jiabao. And I'm not the only one saying this. In recent months, there have been reports saying that Xi Jinping's grip on power is collapsing and the real control of the party has quietly shifted to three powerful party elders, and they are Hu Jintao, former president, Wen Jiabao, former premier, and Hu Deping, a reformist intellectual who is the son of Hu Yaobang. And Hu Jintao is said to be in poor health and largely symbolic. Hu Deping, while he is influential and a visionary, he lacks hands-on experience in managing the government. So that leaves Wen Jiabao as the one party elder with the background, credibility, and the strategy to guide the trade negotiations. Now remember, during Trump's first term, U.S.-China held round after round of talks. U.S. officials described the talks as chaotic and unpredictable. And at one point they got mad or things got so bad that the Americans nearly walked away. And also it was said that the very first day the Chinese delegation landed in the U.S., things blew up. The two sides argued fiercely, and it was an absolute disaster. It got so bad that they canceled the next day's meeting altogether. So that was Xi Jinping's style of negotiation. So what happened in Geneva? It was the opposite. That brings us to the next question. So what role did He Lifeng play in Geneva? If things went so smoothly in Geneva, it means that either Vice Premier He Lifeng wasn't actually in charge, or he wasn't following Xi Jinping's orders. And I believe that is the biggest clue of all. He Lifeng is a big Xi Jinping loyalist. He was one of the few people invited to Xi Jinping's wedding to the famed singer Peng Liyuan. But according to another well-known scholar, Su Xiaohe, there's growing whispers in Beijing's political circles about five senior officials who are quietly distancing themselves from Xi Jinping, and He Lifeng is one of them. So what happened? So Mr. Su says the answer is simple. He said even if Xi Jinping didn't want to agree, he had no choice. The pressure on him was overwhelming from retired generals, PLA generals, from the reformist camp, meaning Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao camp, and most of all from the U.S. and from Trump, and the biggest force of all, the Chinese people. So according to Mr. Su, the reason a deal was even possible is because Xi Jinping's own loyalists have started to jump ship. They've began siding with Wen Jiabao's reformist faction and the party elders. He said Xi's power is being reigned in, and his closest allies can feel it. That's why they are starting to shift their loyalties. Now there's another person who's been quietly signaling that Xi Jinping may no longer be in charge. Who is that? President Trump. Think about it. What was the most striking promise Beijing made in Geneva? It wasn't the tariff cuts. It was the promise to open up China. Before the Geneva talks, President Trump told reporters aboard his Air Force One that his goal in the trade war was to open China. At the time, I thought that was his wishful thinking or that he was being too optimistic. But then came May 10th. So this is what Trump posted. We want to see, for the good of both China and the U.S., an opening up of China to American business. Great progress made. OK, so there it was again, opening up of China. And he didn't stop there. On May 12th, during a press event in the Oval Office, Trump said, we have to get it papered, but they've agreed to open up China. And that same day, in an interview with Sean Hannity on Air Force One, Trump emphasized once more that the opening up of China to U.S. business was the most exciting part of the deal. That's when it hit me. Trump wasn't bluffing. The Chinese side has clearly made a commitment to open up. But here's the thing. Now, here's the thing. For the CCP to agree to something this big is no small matter. It could only mean one of the two things. One of two things. The first is Xi Jinping has done a complete 180-degree reversal and is now embracing a policy that undermines his own power base. Or two, Xi Jinping is no longer the one giving orders on trade. Even if the agreement technically came with Xi Jinping's signature, the context tells us something very different. If he agreed to it, well, it's because he was forced to. Because let's be honest, if Xi Jinping were still in full control, there's no way he would agree to give the green light to something like this. So no matter how you look at it, how you slice it, Xi Jinping has lost control over China's economic direction. And Trump knows it.