https://archive.is/FKuhi (reuters)
https://archive.is/MIdNc (afp)
Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met for about eight hours with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Geneva in their first face-to-face meeting since the world’s two largest economies heaped tariffs well above 100% on each other’s goods.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that an 80% tariff on Chinese goods “seems right”, suggesting for the first time a specific alternative to the 145% levies he has imposed on Chinese imports.
Neither side made any statements about the substance of the discussions nor signaled any progress towards reducing crushing tariffs as meetings at the residence of Switzerland’s ambassador to the U.N. concluded at about 8 p.m. local time. (1800 GMT)
The discussions are expected to restart on Sunday in the Swiss city, according to an individual familiar with the talks, who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The 80% number is just something that Trump posted on his social media early on Friday morning, before any meeting ever happened.
UPDATE Trump posted on truthsocial, 1 hour ago. He describes the meeting with the phrases “total reset” and “great progress”. I won’t believe this until I hear the perspective from China’s government.
Yes, Chen Yun was on the reformer side after the Cultural Revolution but he was still much more in favor of planned economy than liberalization.
After Deng Xiaoping screwed up the price reform in 1988 and after the June 4th incident in the following year, he went into a “retirement” state. The party split into two embittered factions in 1989, with the “conservatives” vowing to turn back the liberalization. Amidst the power struggle, Jiang Zemin (Chen Yun’s protege) was elected as the new head of state, but coming north from the south (Shanghai, Jiangsu), his position was still relatively shaky.
By 1992, Deng came out of retirement to do his Southern Tour, and at the August Wuhan speech, hinted at “replacing the leadership by any means necessary” if anyone dared to stop the reform. The secret meeting at Zhuhai with high ranking officials and generals, not sanctioned by Beijing, caused quite a stir at the very top of the leadership.
This drama ended with Jiang Zemin’s submission to Deng, and pretty much sealed the demise of the planned economy faction. By then, China was already reaching the limits of Deng’s reform and experienced its first economic crisis by the mid-1990s. It would join the WTO in 2001 and usher in the neoliberal era of the 2000s, until Xi came to power in the mid-2010s.
And yes, Vogel’s biography of Deng is excellent. Officially endorsed by CPC, even though certain parts had been censored in the PRC edition - I read the unabridged Hong Kong edition.
Ok thanks for clarifying