Via Gottiboff today comes a rare window of rationality:
President Xi had to decide whether to quell the Hong Kong protests before the national celebration day on October 1 or pursue a trade deal with the US. He could not do both. There is already strong anti-China sentiment in the US and a brutal putting down of the Hong Kong protesters would have created a climate that made a trade deal impossible.
…Xi and his advisers have discovered that China depends on the US for technology much more than was initially believed. Accordingly China believes it needs to spend the next five years building up its independence from the US. A truce in the trade war might be costly but it will give China the breathing space to embark on this long-term project.
