> “We don’t know how to deal with this either,” Tu Xinquan, the president of the China Institute for W.T.O. Studies at the University of International Business and Economics.
> “Is he a sane person at all?” Professor Tu said of the latest move by Mr. Trump. “It’s quite surprising. Didn’t the White House just announce that the trade talks were constructive?”
I'm afraid that Beijing still did not realise that all of the above is pretty much planned. Trump will keep "nightmaring" them, keeping them tense, showering them with unending negative publicity of them keeping failing the trade talks time and time again, while propping up his profile.
Things like this keep showing just how inept and naive are the people making the Chinese elite class.
In a sharp contrast, Chinese business elites are the real sharks, all very sharp people.
Sooner or later, this will end up in conflict in between the two.