Date: September 24th, 2018 12:31 PM
Author: Dark Rambunctious French Chef Meetinghouse
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-thinks-the-trade-war-isnt-really-about-trade/2018/09/23/67c7b0ec-bb51-11e8-b1c5-7a2126bc722c_story.html?utm_term=.07840e8824aa
When Trump became president and started attacking China for enjoying a trade surplus with the United States that hit $375 billion last year, Beijing didn’t think he was really serious, said Paul Haenle, a former China adviser on the Bush and Obama national security councils and now director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing.
“Early on, the Chinese had a very simple narrative that all this trade stuff was about Trump's short-term political objectives, about getting a tweetable victory,” he said. “Now, they’re at the other end of the spectrum. Now it’s all about the U.S. trying to block China’s rise.”
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086048&forum_id=2#36877486)