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5/29/2019
Opinion | Trump Hands China an Easy Win in the Trade War - The New York Times

Days after the president’s tweets, China listed three “red lines,” positions the United States had taken in the trade talks that were unacceptable: First, that it would keep tariffs in place for a period after the proposed trade agreement was signed. Second, that it could impose punitive tariffs if it judged China to be in violation of the agreement, and that China would be forbidden from retaliating with its own tariffs. Third, the ever-inflating expectations of the terms under which Beijing would buy American goods under a proposed bilateral purchasing agreement.

These “red lines” were new. Before that, China’s negotiating team had a fully flexible remit from the leadership. But not anymore. Now that these three lines are in the public domain, there is no way Chinese leaders can yield on them. The leaks of large parts of the negotiating text to the American news media has added a new level of toxicity, making it virtually impossible to return to the existing text as a basis of negotiations. Together with recent moves against the Chinese telecom company Huawei presumably intended to pressure Beijing further, the possibility of negotiating a revised agreement that is more accommodating to American interests is now very slim.

Instead, what I have seen in Beijing over the last few weeks is a country moving in exactly the opposite direction.

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Opinion | Michelle Cottle
Donald Trump’s Great Patriotic Wars May 26, 2019

Economic analysts, meanwhile, have been calculating the impact of a full-blown trade war, estimating a loss of about 1.2 percentage points to Chinese G.D.P. growth. This figure is now portrayed in the Chinese media as entirely manageable given China’s capacity to use fiscal and monetary policy stimulus to support domestic demand and keep growth above 6 percent.

Even if a trade deal with the United States is still possible, some in the Chinese leadership are now starting to ask, why bother? They argue that in technology, investment, foreign policy, national security and human rights, the Trump administration has made it clear that it has embarked on a more adversarial position toward China. So why should Beijing expend any more political capital on a trade deal? Perhaps it’s better, in China’s view, to cut its losses now and get ready for the next Cold War.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/opinion/trump-china-trade-war.html
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