Speaking of masks...

At the wonderful Conservative Treehouse blog, Sundance does another fabulous job explaining U.S. vs. Communist China trade wars.

The potential tariffs (25 percent on $300+ billion in goods) sit on the table as a weapon President Trump would love to start using. However, in the dance with the dragon Lighthizer and Ross have to wait for the panda mask to fully drop. Currently Chairman Xi Jinping is trying to keep the financial/investment class from noticing the panda mask is slipping. However, that ruse can’t last too much longer. Thus the dance continues.

At the 30,000/ft level China appears to have accepted that President Trump isn’t going to concede an inch. Therefore their position in the trade stand-off is timed to exhaust around the 2020 presidential election. Despite what the U.S. media are claiming, Beijing is making very visible moves to withstand more than a year of status quo strain.

All of the heavily pushed media narratives today surrounding Liu He statements are simply Wall Street multinationals, through their media allies, trying to fend off the confrontation between the U.S. and China. There are trillions at stake.

This is a battle between the U.S. and China, but also between U.S. multinationals who are financially positioned/vested on the side of Beijing. The U.S. Wall Street multinationals are trying to protect their Chinese investments by pushing a narrative that China is open to honest and fair negotiations; they are not.

Read more here.

The dance with the dragon

Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse reports that President Trump has stepped in to prevent additional sanctions against China. Beijing is showing the Panda mask (during Beijing trade negotiations).

President Trump and USTR Lighthizer know the nuance and subtlety needed in the dance with the dragon. The larger issue of DPRK denuclearization, the bottom-line reason for the North Korea sanctions, will be solved within the U.S.-China trade discussion.

...In the dance with the dragon, all action must take place toward the face that is currently visible. Beijing is currently showing the Panda face. The U.S. Team know the Panda mask is just that, a mask. This is one of the nuances in dealing with China.

It would be poor form, and ultimately result in little progress, to approach the Panda mask using dragon hostility. This is not how successful outcomes against the Chinese are reached.

The dragon weapons, in this case brutal sanctions, are saved for when the Panda mask is visibly removed; and/or when the Chinese opponent knows you are aware of their duplicity. Deploy countermeasures too early, and your give an excuse for the Panda to drop the mask.



...President Trump already has the Chinese government controlled economy in a state of worry. That worry keeps companies away from engaging with China. That worry is a negative position for Beijing. The elimination of that worry is a positive outcome. China will negotiate terms if they can gain the value of eliminating economic worry.

Thus, the dance with the dragon.

Read more here.