“China is obviously not doing well like us.”

Over the last month the U.S.-China trade war has boosted the risk of a U.S. recession, say a strong majority of economists polled by Reuters, who now put the chances of that happening in the next two years at 40%.

Late last month at a security forum in Washington, DC, Kiron Skinner, Director of Policy Planning for the US Department of State, described today’s US-China conflict as “a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology, and the United States hasn’t had that before.” As a trial balloon, this apparent attempt to define the Trump administration’s confrontation with China did not fly.

China sees little "sincerity" in Trump's recent approach.

The US-China trade war has distorted a clear-eyed view of how both par-ties arrived at the current confrontation. Rather than “hegemonic” policies being pursued by China, it is more accurate to say that both sides have delayed difficult structural reforms and are now paying the price.

A racially charged speech by a senior US State Department official has revived the controversial “Clash of Civilizations” thesis. But despite the Trump administration’s provocative re-definition of China as a strategic competitor, the long-term benefits of Sino-US cooperation will show this “clash” to be a false narrative.

Executive order widely believed to be aimed at China’s Huawei and ZTE

"Every trade negotiation has an ebb and flow, a rhythm, a back-and-forth like a well-choreographed Peking Opera."