That was telegraphed from July. Unrelated to current situation with Bessent
His WTO representative post ended in April. Between April and now he's been doing handover with the next WTO presentative Li Yongjie who has now taken over the role fully.
Also back in April happening at the same time as his WTO representative post was ending Li Chenggang was promoted to vice minister of MOFCOM, the position that gives him standing to negotiate with Bessent.
It was even reported in western media back in April and everything...
You know how
are realizing that Washington knows jack all about how CPC bureaucracy operates and thus has zero predictive power on what China will do next, so every time Xi drops a card it comes as a surprise? This noise about Li Chenggang is just another example of that.