China names economic officials amid slowdown
BEIJING (AP) — China’s government has named a trade specialist as its new commerce minister and appointed a new head of its top economic planning body as part of a Cabinet reshuffle that comes amid a slowing economy and the threat of increased trade friction with President Donald Trump’s administration.
Top trade representative Zhong Shan will become minister of commerce, while He Lifeng will take over the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday. The appointments are expected to be ratified next month during the national legislature’s annual two-week session.
The two new appointees — both of whom have worked in the past with President Xi Jinping — will step into crucial roles guiding the world’s second-largest economy at a time of serious challenges. The ruling Communist Party is grappling with an economic growth rate that fell last year to 6.7 percent, its weakest pace since 1990, while exports shrank by 7.7 percent.
Trump, meanwhile, has promised to take a tougher line toward Beijing on trade, raising fears of a slump in commerce between the two key trading partners.
Chinese policymakers are entering an “uneasy” moment and are seeking to expand trade agreements with countries other than the United States, said Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics and a former China specialist at the World Bank.
“China is quite vulnerable vis-a-vis U.S. measures and they realize they may face attacks out of D.C. that they have to prepare themselves for,” Kuijs said.
Trump continued his feisty rhetoric on Thursday, calling Beijing the “grand champions” of currency manipulation for allegedly seeking an unfair export advantage by keeping the yuan undervalued. That drew a rebuttal from Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.
“China has no intention to gain trade advantages by devaluing its currency on a competitive basis,” Geng said. “We hope that relevant parties can view the (Chinese currency) exchange rate issue in an objective light and do more that contributes to mutual trust and cooperation.”
Despite his tough talk, Trump made no indication that he would make good on his campaign promise to formally declare China a currency manipulator.