Whining about China and starting a unilateral trade war is not a winning strategy. If China stumbles, the world will tumble.

Trump’s belligerent style in waging the trade war overlooks China’s history of stiff resistance against stronger foes. The US-China relationship is the world’s most important, and if we don’t get it right, the chances of a violent outcome increase significantly.

Just when a trade agreement between the United States and China appeared to be in sight, negotiators found themselves back at square one. The immediate reason for the disruption was China’s insistence on a substantially rewritten draft agreement, which, according to US President Donald Trump’s administration, reneges on previously agreed terms. But the root cause of China’s changes to the draft – the reason behind its reluctance to meet US demands – lies in a fundamental miscalculation by the Trump administration.

As America’s China policy turns from engagement to competition, Beijing must face facts: Trump or no Trump, the US has reached bipartisan consensus on containing China. How should Beijing respond? Where will the current confrontation lead? In crafting a new strategy towards the US, China must consider the ultimate goal of its rise, and how America fits into the big picture.

Trade and economic ties were long the ballast in China-US ties — despite political disputes, the business community was in favor of warmer relations. Now the ballast threatens to turn into a stumbling block, as trade may be the sticking point preventing both nations from returning to a friendly stance, while exacerbating their superpower competition.

Trump’s idiosyncratic “art of the deal” apparently means putting extreme pressure on your negotiating partner to force them to surrender — but the US approach is based on faulty Trumpian economic assumptions and a misread of China’s growth history, and will only backfire.

“When governments permit counterfeiting or copying of American products, it is stealing our future, and it is no longer free trade.” So said US President Ronald Reagan, commenting on Japan after the Plaza Accord was concluded in September 1985. Today resembles, in many respects, a remake of this 1980s movie, but with a reality-television star replacing a Hollywood film star in the presidential leading role – and with a new villain in place of Japan.

A senior U.S. State Department official’s inflammatory comments about a “Clash of Civilizations” reignited debate about how to view history and differing cultures. The Conference on Asian Civilizations Dialogue, hosted in Beijing this May, offered a more level-headed and equitable path to understand civilizational differences.

President Trump never intended to resolve the trade war he created with China. Instead, he will leverage his tariffs to blackmail China into following his way.

Why was the Chinese government unwilling to accept Trump’s last minute demands during trade talks? Look to history: 2019 marks the centenary of the anti-imperialist May 4th movement. China can hardly be accepted to surrender to a 21st-century “unequal treaty”—if the US government understood this aspect of Chinese culture better, negotiations would proceed more smoothly.