Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng will travel to Spain for talks with U.S. officials on a range of economic and trade issues, including U.S. unilateral tariffs, abuse of export controls and TikTok, the Ministry of Commerce announced on Friday.

He, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, will lead a delegation to Spain from September 14 to 17.

Hours before the Chinese announcement, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would meet with senior Chinese officials, including He, to discuss economic and trade issues in Madrid.

The meeting will be the fourth round of China-U.S. economic and trade talks in six months.

Tariffs

Negotiations on the U.S. imposition of unilateral tariffs on Chinese products have dominated the last three rounds of talks.

Following the first meeting between He and Bessent – the lead officials for economic and trade affairs for China and the U.S., respectively – in Geneva in May, Beijing and Washington issued a joint statement and agreed to establish a China-U.S. economic and trade consultation mechanism.

The Geneva talks were marked by substantial progress, leading to a significant reduction in bilateral tariffs. The U.S. removed 91 percent of its additional tariffs, and China reciprocated by lifting 91 percent of its retaliatory tariffs. Furthermore, the U.S. suspended 24 percent of its "reciprocal tariffs" for 90 days, with China doing the same for its corresponding countermeasures.

In the subsequent meeting in London in June, the first held under the China-U.S. economic and trade consultation mechanism, the two sides agreed in principle on the framework for implementing the consensus reached by the two heads of state during their phone talks on June 5 and consolidating the outcomes of the Geneva talks.

He and Bessent last met in Sweden in July. According to a joint statement on the meeting, issued on August 12, China and the U.S. agreed to extend the tariff truce for another 90 days, pushing the deadline to early November.

China has long criticized the U.S. for using tariffs as a form of trade protectionism, stressing that it is a self-damaging and unilateral approach that breaks multilateral trade rules and disrupts global supply chains.

Export controls

Compared with the past Chinese statements announcing scheduled talks between He and Bessent, it seems that export controls are being highlighted for the first time as a significant agenda item in a China-U.S. economic and trade meeting.

On Friday, the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added more than 20 Chinese entities to the so-called Entity List, targeting sectors including semiconductors, biotech, aerospace, and commercial trade and logistics, and subjecting them to strict export controls.

In its response, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Saturday questioned the U.S. move's intent since it comes just as talks are about to start in Spain and vowed to take necessary measures to protect Chinese businesses' legitimate interests.

The latest sanctions came after the BIS in May released a guidance that, under the pretext of so-called presumed violations of U.S. export control rules, attempts to impose a global ban on advanced Chinese computing chips, including specific Huawei Ascend chips.

Over the past few years, the U.S. has repeatedly broadened its export controls on China's semiconductor and AI sectors under the pretext of national security. These restrictions have expanded from specific integrated circuits to encompass nearly the entire supply chain, including manufacturing, outsourcing, and software.

By implementing discriminatory export controls on AI models and integrated circuits that provide underlying computing power support, the U.S. is, in essence, creating a tiered structure within the realm of AI, favoring certain entities while depriving the vast number of developing countries, including China, of the right to achieve technological advancement, according to a white paper titled "China's Position on Some Issues Concerning China-U.S. Economic and Trade Relations," released in April.

Citing findings of a U.S. think tank, the white paper said entities are added to the U.S. export control Entity List based on confidential, non-transparent information, with opaque and poorly defined criteria. Furthermore, the threshold for removal is so high that entities find it extremely difficult to get delisted, even through judicial means.

Read more:

China slams U.S. for adding Chinese entities to export control list

China launches anti-dumping probe on certain U.S. analog IC chips

TikTok

Both the Chinese and U.S. statements on the upcoming talks in Madrid explicitly include TikTok on the agenda, treating it as a key topic for discussion alongside traditional economic and trade issues.

Citing unfounded national security concerns and alleged risks to data privacy, Washington has sought to ban TikTok, which is owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance but operated independently, for many years.

In April 2024, then U.S. President Joe Biden signed a law requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok within 270 days or face a ban from U.S. app stores by January 19, 2025. Following his return to office, Donald Trump began a series of extensions. He issued three separate executive orders, on January 20, April 4, and June 19, 2025, each delaying the ban's enforcement.

The most recent extension pushed the new deadline to September 17, 2025, allowing TikTok to continue operating for its approximately 170 million users in the United States, nearly half the country's population. American users have consistently voiced opposition to Washington's actions against TikTok, arguing that a ban would threaten their livelihoods and free speech.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said on Friday that Beijing is firmly committed to safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises and will handle the TikTok issue in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations.

Beijing urges Washington to work with China, resolve concerns through dialogue based on mutual respect and equal consultation, and find solutions that ensure an open, fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies, including TikTok, to continue operations in the U.S., the spokesperson said.

This will promote the stable, healthy and sustainable development of China-U.S. economic and trade relations, added the spokesperson.