Trump’s Charm and Threats May Not Be Working on China. Here’s Why.
Chinese negotiators left Washington this weekend with a significant win: a willingness by the Trump administration to hold off for now on imposing tariffs on up to $150 billion in Chinese imports. China gave up little in return, spurning the administration’s nudges for a concrete commitment to buy more goods from the United States, and avoiding limits on its efforts to build new high-tech Chinese industries.
China’s propaganda machine took a victory lap after the talks, proclaiming that a strong challenge from the United States had been turned aside, at least for now. “Whether in Beijing or Washington, in the face of the unreasonable demands of the United States, the Chinese government has always resolutely fought back, never compromised, and did not accept the restrictions set by the other side,” the official Xinhua news service said in a commentary on Sunday.
.. One photo was taken during the trade talks in Washington, appearing, if somewhat biasedly, to trumpet the youthfulness of Chinese delegates compared with American lawmakers. Another, dated from 1901, showed the opposite as representatives from China and colonial powers signed an accord to end the Boxer Rebellion, considered a national humiliation.
.. China’s success partly comes from its ability to stick to a single strategy in trade. Even as Beijing has shown a willingness to talk and make peace offerings in the form of multibillion-dollar import contracts, it has held fast to its refusal to make any commitment for a fixed reduction in its trade gap with the United States.
.. The trade imbalance between the countries has actually widened since Mr. Trump visited Beijing in November
.. Beijing also has not bent on its Made in China 2025 initiative, an industrial modernization program that Washington and American business groups complain forces foreign companies to share their best technology while potentially creating state-sponsored rivals.
.. White House trade officials have more expertise with trade law, but China has a small but cohesive team of negotiators who report directly to Liu He, a vice premier and nearly lifelong friend of Xi Jinping
.. Policy decisions that once took a month can now take as little as a day
.. China only committed to continue buying ever-rising quantities of American food and fossil fuels
.. Trump suggested on Thursday that China might have prodded Mr. Kim to threaten to cancel the summit meeting between the two leaders planned for June 12.
.. Mr. Trump’s perception of a link indicates that at the very least the North Korea issue may have been a constraint on American officials’ willingness to confront their Chinese counterparts.
.. In some ways, Beijing may find it almost impossible to agree to American demands. The United States exports only $130 billion in goods a year to China. Finding more goods to buy to reduce China’s trade surplus by $200 billion would be extremely difficult, except if China cut its own exports to the United States.
“It is kind of unrealistic — and if Chinese officials agree, they will face a lot of pressure from public opinion,”