According to an October 8 exclusive report by Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, citing sources, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is now putting most of his attention into preparing for President Donald Trump's planned visit to Shenzhen, China, next month — to the point that he may skip the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Finance Ministers' Meeting he had been expected to attend. That gathering is scheduled for October 20-21 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai, the first time Hong Kong has hosted it. Sources say Bessent views a planned meeting with Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng in Shenzhen as the higher priority, underscoring how much weight the White House is placing on the coming Trump-Xi encounter.

If Bessent ultimately skips the Hong Kong meeting, the US delegation is expected to be led instead by Erin Browne, Treasury Under Secretary for International Affairs. Asked whether Bessent would attend, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said he could not confirm the attendee list, noting that invitations and registration were being handled by mainland China's Ministry of Finance. Hong Kong's government began preparing for the meeting late last year, setting up a steering committee chaired by Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui, which held its first meeting on January 23; Lee has repeatedly said the city will offer delegates a "high-quality" experience. According to Legislative Council papers, the APEC finance ministers' meeting is meant to give the bloc's finance chiefs a platform to exchange views on the regional and global economic outlook.

The reason Bessent is prioritizing Shenzhen is that he plans to meet He Lifeng there to lay the groundwork for what would be Trump's latest encounter this year with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and to push for a further extension of the tariff and trade truce the two sides reached last year. That truce — referred to by some outlets as the "Busan Agreement" — had originally been due to expire on November 10, but after Xi's state visit to Washington in late September, the two sides extended it by two months, to January 10, 2027. At the time, Bessent said China's follow-through on its commitments had "not been perfect": soybean purchases were roughly on track, but progress on rare-earth export controls and other agricultural purchases was lagging. Under the original terms of last year's truce, the US cut average tariffs on Chinese goods to roughly 47%, while China agreed to pause planned rare-earth export restrictions for a year and to buy 12 million metric tons of US soybeans by this past January, followed by 25 million tons annually over the following three years.

The Bessent-He channel has now run for more than a year and has been the key conduit for easing trade friction in stages this year. Besides Paris, Seoul and New York, the two men have also held rounds of talks in Geneva, London, Stockholm, Madrid and Kuala Lumpur, wrangling over tariff relief, technology export controls and related issues. September's New York talks were seen as the "final prep session" ahead of Xi's Washington visit, and the upcoming Shenzhen meeting is likewise viewed as a fresh round of groundwork meant to clear obstacles ahead of Trump's trip. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called 2026 a "big year" for US-China relations earlier this year, saying both sides needed to make thorough preparations, create a suitable atmosphere and manage existing risks — a line now being used as a benchmark for judging whether the Shenzhen visit succeeds.

The planned Bessent-He meeting is not an isolated event but part of this year's dense run of high-level US-China diplomacy, laying the groundwork respectively for Trump's state visit to Beijing on May 13-15 and Xi's reciprocal state visit to Washington on September 23-25. Trump's Beijing trip marked the first time a sitting US president had set foot in China in nearly a decade. If the November Shenzhen trip goes ahead, it would be Trump's third meeting with Xi this year; he has said previously the two could meet as many as four times in 2026, potentially including a G20 summit in Miami in December.

Shenzhen was picked to host this year's informal APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting largely because of its status as one of China's foremost technology hubs, home to companies including Huawei, Tencent, BYD and DJI. Beijing wants to use the summit to showcase its innovation-driven growth model, in what is seen as a symbolic display of its "resolve to uphold openness." It would be the third time China has hosted the APEC leaders' meeting, after Shanghai in 2001 and Beijing in 2014. Xi has said China will use the platform to advance regional cooperation on free trade, connectivity, the digital economy and artificial intelligence. Reports say that if Trump attends, he would become the first sitting US president to visit Shenzhen — and that no previous US president's China trip has ever taken him to Guangdong province at all.

With the US-China trade truce on the clock, the Shenzhen summit and the talks leading up to it have also drawn close attention from global markets and multinational companies. Analysts say the coming round of talks, beyond extending the tariff truce, could touch on new items such as an "AI safety incident hotline," as well as whether a bigger economic package can be struck by January. Bessent has previously said the two sides "might also just roll the current deal" rather than rushing into a more binding long-term agreement — meaning that even if the Shenzhen meeting goes smoothly, its outcome may not immediately take the form of a new signed agreement, but rather an extension of existing arrangements along with a timetable for the next round of talks. Another focus for market watchers is whether China will further step up purchases of US goods, including agricultural products such as soybeans and big-ticket industrial goods such as aircraft, to help narrow the bilateral trade imbalance; Washington, meanwhile, is more focused on technology export controls, managing AI-related risks, and how faithfully China follows through on its rare-earth export policies.

As of now, however, Trump himself has not formally confirmed he will attend the APEC leaders' meeting set for November 18-19 in Shenzhen, and the White House has made no official statement on the trip; the plans remain at the stage of expectation and sourced reporting. Analysts note Trump has skipped APEC gatherings in the past, and that Taiwan — a longstanding "red line" in the relationship — could still disrupt the visit. Some commentators have also argued that Trump's May trip to Beijing was heavy on pageantry but light on concrete deliverables, leaving observers cautious about whether the Shenzhen visit can produce "quantifiable" breakthroughs on trade, technology or regional security. A related CNBC analysis has likewise noted that for the current trade truce to actually hold, the two sides will need to produce "tangible outcomes" in their coming meetings, rather than relying on eased atmospherics and pageantry alone.

Either way, Bessent's reported rescheduling is being read as a sign that US-China relations are entering another intensive stretch of diplomacy: from October's finance ministers' meeting in Hong Kong, to November's APEC summit in Shenzhen, to a possible G20 gathering in Miami in December. In the months before the trade truce expires, the two countries are expected to hold further high-level talks on tariffs, rare-earth supply chains, agricultural purchases and technology cooperation — with the substance of the Shenzhen visit itself still to be determined when Trump and Xi actually meet.