How Trump's man in Beijing swung from trade globalist to China hawk

By Laurie Chen and Michael Martina

BEIJING/WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - The new U.S. envoy to China, Ambassador David Perdue is a former champion of global trade turned China hawk who will emphasize his close ties to President Donald Trump as he seeks to restore crucial lines of communication between Washington and Beijing.

Perdue, a one-time Republican Senator for Georgia, arrived in Beijing Thursday, according to a post on his X account. He replaces career diplomat Nicholas Burns, a pick of former President Joe Biden, who left in January.

Perdue's arrival will be closely watched after both sides reached an unexpected truce in Geneva last weekend, pausing a trade war between the world's two biggest economies that had stoked fears of a global recession.

"It is an honor to represent President Trump," Perdue wrote on his official X account Thursday, accompanied by a selfie taken outside the embassy building.

"I am ready to get to work here and make America safer, stronger and more prosperous."

Analysts say Perdue, who was a prominent Senate ally for Trump in his first term, will use his ties to Trump as he seeks to gain credibility with Chinese interlocutors to help push through a trade deal.

"I would describe David Perdue as having one of the closest relationships with the President of any of our ambassadors," Republican Senator Steve Daines told Reuters in an interview.

"President Trump has picked the right man, at the right time, for this most important responsibility."

Perdue is also tasked with helping to convince Beijing to stop the flow to the U.S. of ingredients used to manufacture the deadly opioid fentanyl, the reason behind 20% of Washington's remaining tariffs on China.

Daines said he and Perdue have discussed the issue "at length," including a proposal offered by Chinese Premier Li Qiang in March during Daines' visit to Beijing.

Daines suggested both sides could structure a tariff reduction deal around whether Beijing commits to effectively stopping the precursor flow within a set timeframe, though it remains up to the two countries' negotiators to hammer out such steps.

China's foreign ministry said Wednesday it is "willing to facilitate" Perdue's arrival in Beijing to take up his duties. Reuters has contacted the U.S. Embassy in Beijing for comment.

CHINA LINKS

Perdue, 75, was once a global trade evangelist, who leveraged outsourcing manufacturing to Asia during his 40-year international business career.

He later became a China security hawk in the Senate, and backed, if initially reluctantly, Trump's first term tariffs on the country.

Perdue and Daines co-led congressional delegations to China in 2018 and 2019, meeting then-Premier Li Keqiang and Liu He, President Xi Jinping's former economic tsar and lead Chinese negotiator for the U.S.-China Phase One trade deal to reduce tariffs during Trump's first term.

Chinese officials expect Perdue to be more "pragmatic" and economics-minded than his predecessor, who was more focused on "ideological issues" such as human rights, said Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University.

"Given his business background, he can ... work to resolve specific issues in areas such as trade, economic and people-to-people exchanges," said Wu.

They are also hoping he can act as a direct communications channel between China and the U.S., he added.

OUTSOURCING CAREER

Perdue was raised in Warner Robins, Georgia by two teachers from a farming community.

He studied at Georgia Institute of Technology before joining consultancy Kurt Salmon Associates, where he helped American clothing manufacturers source products from Asian factories.

He helped consumer goods company Sara Lee establish its Asia operations while living in Hong Kong 1992-1994. The firm cut thousands of jobs in 1994, including at plants in Virginia and Georgia. The pattern repeated during his subsequent stints at Haggar Clothing, Reebok and Dollar General.

In a 2005 deposition, Perdue said he was "proud" of his outsourcing record and blamed government policies for the decline of U.S. manufacturing, according to a transcript.

He won his first Senate race in 2014 as a self-styled "job creator" and global trade evangelist.

While senator, Perdue was focused on military and security issues, becoming the head of the Senate Armed Forces Committee's Sea Power Subcommittee in 2019.

He advocated for bolstering U.S. maritime power and shipbuilding efforts, and boarded U.S. Navy warship transits in the South China Sea. He visited Taiwan in 2018, meeting the island democracy's then-President Tsai Ing-wen.

Following his 2018 visit to China, Perdue told a forum in Washington that he didn't like tariffs but believed Trump's "instincts are right" because they were disruptive enough to get Beijing's attention.

At the same event, Perdue warned of U.S. complacency over Beijing's growing economic and military might and expressed concerns about China's direction as it grew in power.

"We all got it wrong. We thought as China became more affluent... that they would open up and liberalise," he said. "That just hasn't happened."

Seven years later, the U.S.-China relationship remains dogged by the same issues Perdue raised in his visits to China - equal market access, forced tech transfers, intellectual property theft, compliance with world trade norms and cyber warfare.

His rhetoric on China has also hardened in recent years, mirroring a bipartisan hawkish shift in Washington toward its top geopolitical rival.

Last year, Perdue condemned Xi as a "modern-day emperor," writing in an essay that Beijing wanted to "destroy capitalism and democracy" and that U.S. supply chains should decouple from China.

However, during his confirmation hearing last month, Perdue called for a "nuanced, nonpartisan and strategic" approach to Beijing.

Yun Sun, a China expert at the Stimson Center, said Perdue was named by Trump early on as a trusted emissary to Beijing.

"The challenge between the U.S. and China is structural, so no one expects a single person to change the world," said Sun. "But having an effective communicator is always going to help."