i) Following the breakdown of trade talks between the US and China, the Editor in Chief of the official Global Times, Hu Jixin, wrote on twitter that 'China is obviously less powerful than the US, but it has strong capability to protect its core interests, which are narrow in scope. Even N.Korea is strong when it comes to its core concerns.China respects US interests, the US should also be able to discern China's core interests'.

ii) The reactions on public and social media channels to the Sino-US trade war are interesting. "Taoran Notes ("陶然笔记,") a WeChat account connected to the official Economic Daily newspaper, wrote on May 9 that China is willing to talk if the U.S. is, and is also willing to fight a trade war if that is what the U.S. wants. It went on to say that in 2 of the nearly 3 years of the "War to Resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea" (China's name for the Korean War) the U.S. and Chinese sides were both talking and fighting. Several well-known hawks have also been quite vocal in their desire to see the trade talks fail. Retired PLAAF Colonel  and Professor at China's National Defence University Dai Xu said "I very much hope that the negotiations will break down. Once the negotiations are over, the United States will be finished, for sure ... we kick out all the American companies and bring all of ours back.... No way will Trump be re-elected." He added "Chinese people need to have backbone. I am very opposed to one of our traditional concepts, which is that no matter how much others have hurt China, we are educated to forget ... what's the meaning of remembering the history without the hatred? It's meaningless." Da Wei, Assistant President and Professor at the University of International Relations in Beijing and a very connected and influential PRC scholar of America, similarly offered a pessimistic scenario for the relationship saying it is possible that "[W]e will have another type of Cold War..I think it is a comprehensive confrontation. ... If that happens it will last for quite a long time. That's a tragedy for everyone."

(Comment: Meanwhile, popular sentiment in the US is also quite negative on China with bipartisan consensus on the Trade War.)