CHINA CHANGES LEAD BILATERAL INVESTMENT TREATY

C O N F I D E N T I A L BEIJING 003339 SIPDIS STATE PASS USTR EEB FOR OIA E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/28/2018 TAGS: ETRD EINV TBIO PREL CH SUBJECT: CHINA CHANGES LEAD BILATERAL INVESTMENT TREATY NEGOTIATOR Classified By: ROBERT LUKE, ECONOMIC MINISTER-COUNSELOR, REASON 1.5(B) ¶1. (C) On August 27 U.S. Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) negotiators in Washington received an e-mail from China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) informing them that China had designated a new lead negotiator for BIT talks scheduled September 2-5 in Beijing. On August 28 MOFCOM confirmed to Embassy the change, but declined to provide a reason. The new negotiator, Director General Li Ling is Director-General level official in MOFCOM's Bureau of Fair Trade in Imports and Exports (BOFT) and is the wife of People's Bank of China (PBOC) Governor Zhou Xiaochun. Earlier, Li also reportedly had some involvement in the drafting of China's recently promulgated Anti-Monopoly Law. She has been at MOFCOM or its predecessor ministries since 1981. She graduated in 1980 from the Beijing Institute of International Affairs. Li is also a standing member and arbitrator in China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC). ¶2. (C) Li is well known by the the Embassy as she led MOFCOM's IPR office in 2004-05 and was a key U.S. interlocutor on IPR during that period. Those who dealt with her on IPR REPORT that she did not seem to know well the substance, but was known for her ability to lead and organize a negotiating team. She was a personable but often an inflexible, and sometimes unresponsive negotiator who seemed unwilling to push back on the Chinese IPR bureaucracy to reach an agreement. Li speaks limited English and uses an interpreter for all official meetings. ¶3. (C) The replacement of Director General Guo Jingyi as the lead BIT negotiator is not a surprise as Guo indicated a number of times over the past two months to Econoffs that he may not lead the talks. While Li has replaced Guo Jingyi as lead negotiator for the BIT talks, MOFCOM has denied that any other changes have been made in MOFCOM's Treaty and Law Department, ie, as far as we know, Shang Ming remains Director General. MOFCOM would also not provide information on whether Guo will have a new assignment. Embassy has heard rumors that Guo has been implicated in an investigation currently underway at MOFCOM that reportedly involves a number of mid and high-level MOFCOM officials who were close to former Vice Premier Wu Yi. However, we have no official confirmation of these rumors. RANDT