US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is set to meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, with AI and China's rare earth stockpiles as focus topics. 🇨🇳🇺🇸 Putting AI and rare earths specifically on the agenda rather than tariffs broadly is also a meaningful choice. China still controls the rare earth supply chain the U.S. defense and clean energy sectors depend on, and the U.S. still controls the advanced AI chip technology China wants access to. Every concession in the Busan deal, the tariff cuts, the suspended rare earth controls, was explicitly built with a one year expiration date, which means both sides always knew a moment like this was coming and have had a year to prepare their opening positions.