The last edition of China This Week noted how new Chinese export controls on rare earth minerals and increasing scrutiny of semiconductors led the United States to raise tariffs on China to a rate of 100%. On Friday (October 17), US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that he will meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Malaysia next week, after a video call between them.
Both Bessent and He have been central to bilateral trade talks in the last six months to ease tensions. However, the past few days have been anything but peaceful. Bessent told the Financial Times on Monday that China instituted the measures because its economy was “weak” and it wanted to “pull everybody else down with them.” He later described a senior Chinese official as “slightly unhinged” and “disrespectful” during talks.
In major domestic news, a Chinese defence spokesperson on Friday said that He Weidong, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), was expelled from the party and military service.
While the Politburo is among the top political bodies in China, the CMC is the highest military decision-making body presiding over the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Eight other former senior military officials were also expelled.
In other news, renowned Indian-origin American foreign affairs analyst Ashley J Tellis was arrested on Wednesday for the alleged “unlawful retention of national defense information” and is believed to have met Chinese officials to pass information to them.
The coming week will see two important events in China: the release of the Q3 GDP data on Monday and a meeting known as the fourth plenum on the next five-year plan. We will cover them in next week’s edition. For now, here is a closer look at the three developments this week:
1. He-Bessent meeting
The meeting announcement follows a tense few days in US-China relations, with Bessent at its centre. China accused the US of stoking panic over rare earth controls and said Bessent made “grossly distorted” remarks about trade negotiator Li Chenggang. To understand why rare earths matter and China’s dominance in the field, read our earlier story here.
UPSHOT: Bessent and He have met with the countries’ delegations in multiple European cities, to varying degrees of success. While the first set of talks in Switzerland in May helped drastically reduce the high tariffs imposed by the two countries on one another, subsequent meetings aimed to hammer out a trade deal. This is a complex task, to say the least, given the long list of complaints that Trump has with the Chinese government on trade issues and China’s refusal to give in.
Analysts said that the official readouts from the Bessent-He call did not indicate any breakthrough. The Malaysia meeting could, then, be primarily aimed at improving communications amid low trust ahead of the meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month, which is still on track to happen.
2. PLA purge continues
Of the nine people expelled from the CPC, He Weidong and Miao Hua, a CMC member, were particularly prominent. He was last seen in March, and is the first Politburo serving member to be investigated, the BBC reported.
An official press release said of all those expelled: “The individuals had seriously violated Party discipline and are suspected of major duty-related crimes. Their violations involved exceptionally large amounts of money, and are of extremely serious nature and with extremely negative impacts,” the spokesperson said. “Violated party discipline” is often a euphemism for corruption in China.
UPSHOT: Miao was removed from the national legislature in late June, which indicated all was not well. At the time, another senior military official, Vice Admiral Li Hanjun, was stripped of his legislative credentials.
When seen over a longer period, it is clear that they are just the latest in Xi’s purges that are supposedly aimed at eradicating corruption, but also sending a message about his unchallenged power at this point. Defence Ministers and top leaders have been unceremoniously removed in recent years.
China-watchers have previously noted that the current round shows even Xi-appointed officials or his loyalists are not safe from the purges. Some of it also may have to do with rival factions in the party jostling for power by revealing powerful information about other individuals’ dealings. And while corruption remains a genuine challenge in the PLA and the Chinese system at large, it also shows instability and inefficiencies, all the way to the top.
3. The Ashley Tellis case
Tellis, 64, has long been a part of the foreign policy establishment, having served as an advisor to former US President George W Bush. You can read his brief profile here.
One of his most influential works is a 2015 report for the think tank Council on Foreign Relations, co-authored with former US Ambassador to India, Robert D Blackwill. Titled “Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China”, it argued for “a new U.S. policy of balancing China… placing less emphasis on support and cooperation and more on pressure and competition. There would be less hedging and more active countering”.
One of his central arguments was for the US to foster closer ties with India to counter China. The 2015 report said, “Especially in the face of an increasingly assertive China, the United States benefits from the presence of a robust democratic power that is willing to and capable of independently balancing Beijing’s rising influence in Asia.” Although he raised some doubts about the extent to which this could be done, and the possible benefits, in recent months.
Writing in The Diplomat recently, Hemant Adlakha, the Vice Chairperson and an Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), New Delhi, detailed the reactions of Chinese analysts as thus: “They argue that the arrest is significant not only because of who Tellis is but also because of what it suggests about India-U.S. relations. There is a prevailing atmosphere of a cooling of India-U.S. relations during Trump’s second term – the exact opposite of what Tellis has long worked for.”
He and Bessent have met with their countries’ delegations in multiple European cities for trade negotiations of late, to varying degrees of success. (X/ChinaDaily) 
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