The "first stage" trade agreement was initially reached in the 13th round of high-level economic and trade consultations between China and the United States on October 10-11, local time, which may be formally signed during the APEC summit in Chile on November 16.

China and the United States have made substantial progress in agriculture, intellectual property protection, exchange rates, financial services, expanded trade cooperation, technology transfer, dispute settlement and other areas. The trade friction between China and the United States has eased rather than ended in stages, and even if a partial agreement is signed, it does not mean that the problem of trade friction between China and the United States has been solved once and for all.

In fact, the overall situation of Sino-US trade friction since 2018 is to stop, the overall situation escalated, the field gradually expanded, from trade friction to science and technology war, financial war, geopolitical war, public opinion war and other omni-directional games.

According to the White House website, the main elements of the "first phase" agreement include:

1) tariffMr Trump suspended a 25 per cent tariff increase on $250 billion of Chinese goods scheduled for October 15, while a 15 per cent tariff on some of the $300 billion (about $160 billion, and the rest came into effect on Sept. 1) still needs to be negotiated.

2) in agricultureChina will buy about $40 billion to $50 billion worth of agricultural products, especially pork and soybeans.

3) Financial services and currencyChina has expanded the opening up of financial service institutions, including banks, and reached agreements on foreign exchange market transparency and market freedom.

4) intellectual property rightsChina strengthens the protection of intellectual property rights from the United States.

5Progress has been made in the dispute settlement mechanism, but the details have not been made public.In addition, Trump welcomed Chinese students to the United States and supported Chinese companies to invest in the United States. However, the agreement does not solve the problem of many sanctioned enterprises and government agencies, such as Huawei, and the tariffs of 25% and 15% have not been completely eliminated. "currency manipulators" still need to be formally evaluated and confirmed by the US Treasury in mid-late October. Only part of the technology transfer is involved, and the technology transfer still needs to be negotiated at a later stage. Therefore, there is still a long way to go for Sino-US economic and trade consultations.

The preliminary conclusion of the "first stage" trade agreement is the result of a compromise between China and the United States, and both China and the United States are willing to reach it under the current situation.

In the United States, Trump is restricted by four major factors: the economic downturn, the pressure of impeachment, the decline in support for traditional constituencies and the escalation of trade frictions between the United States and Europe. There is an urgent need to ease trade frictions between China and the United States to improve the US economy and its political performance.

1) the economic downturn in the United StatesThe negative impact of Sino-US trade frictions on the US economy has further emerged.

Exports remain in the doldrums and investment is weak, with the US manufacturing PMI index of 47.8 per cent in September, the lowest since June 2009.

2Trump faces impeachment pressure from the Democratic Party.

The latest poll shows that 52% of Americans support the impeachment of Trump by the House of Representatives, up 3 percentage points from the end of September.

3Farmers and high-tech companies have suffered, and Trump's approval rating has fallen in traditional positions, including the rust state, and is now lower than Biden, Warren and Sanders.

The agriculture and energy sectors opposed Trump's imposition of tariffs because of the sharp drop in exports; the technology and financial sectors benefited from globalization and wanted China to expand financial openness, but opposed the resolution through tariffs and the resulting capital market turmoil.

4) escalation of trade frictions between the United States and EuropeWTO ruled that the United States won the case against the European Union subsidizing Airbus, and the United States imposed 10% and 25% tariffs on EU large civil aircraft and agricultural products respectively, triggering EU retaliation for the US subsidy of Boeing Co.

On the Chinese side, the impact of Sino-US economic and trade frictions on China is apparent, and the current downward pressure on the economy is increasing.

At present, China's major economic data have fallen, and the troika is weak: real estate investment continues to slow, investment in infrastructure and manufacturing continues to be depressed, consumption is depressed, exports have fallen sharply, and fiscal revenue growth has fallen sharply. 11 provinces and cities have negative revenue growth; industrial enterprise profit growth is negative. At the same time, promoting a new round of reform and opening up is what China should have done.

However, we should always be soberly aware that trade agreements are not the cards and demands of the United States. The United States is trying to collect tariff benefits through trade wars and bring manufacturing back to the United States, and curb the vitality of China's innovation through scientific and technological wars. we will gain more means to deal a blow to China's economy through financial wars, disrupt the peaceful and stable development environment in China and its surrounding areas through geographical wars, and confuse right and wrong to deceive the people of the world through public opinion wars. The most fundamental and essential thing is to contain China's rise and safeguard US hegemony. This is the card.

Specifically,

1）In the field of economy and tradeThe scale of tariffs imposed by the United States on China is constantly expanding and the tax rate is constantly rising, and the signing of the "US-Canada-Mexico Free Trade Agreement" sets the "poison pill clause" against China.

2）In the field of financeThe United States has launched an investigation into Chinese banks to forcibly identify China as a "currency manipulator". Recently, there are plans to prevent Chinese companies from listing in the United States, ban US pension funds from investing in the Chinese market, and include the RMB exchange rate in the negotiated agreement.

3）In the field of science and technologyThe United States has banned and suppressed Huawei, Haikang, Dahua and other high-tech enterprises, demonstrating its intention to contain China's high-tech.

4）Geopolitical fieldThe United States has carried out a crackdown on China at three levels: meddling in the affairs of Hong Kong and Taiwan to challenge sovereignty and territorial integrity, and sanctioning countries that are relatively friendly to China, indirectly challenging China's overseas economic and political interests; weakening and stigmatizing China's international status and influence. Recently, the United States has added Xinjiang public security organs to the list of export control entities.

5）In the field of international organizations and rulesThe United States does not recognize China's market economy and its status as a developing country, and unilaterally presses the WTO to revise international rules, even breaking its own system when its practical interests are violated.

6）In the field of international public opinionThe United States has basically controlled traditional media and emerging social media public opinion, joined forces with allies to denigrate China's international image, and discredited China's "Belt and Road Initiative" initiative.

With the rise of China's economy, the shift of the industrial division of labor between China and the United States from complementarity to competition, and the increasingly prominent differences between China and the United States in values, ideology and national governance, major changes have taken place in American political views on China, and hawkish views continue to rise. Some Americans believe that China is political authoritarianism, economic state capitalism, mercantilism in trade and new expansionism in international relations. It is a comprehensive challenge to the U.S.-led Western world.

China's economic rise challenges US economic hegemony, China's entry into high technology challenges US high-tech monopoly, Chinese mercantilism challenges US trade rules, and China's "Belt and Road Initiative" initiative challenges American geopolitics. China's development model challenges American ideology and Western civilization.

Sino-US trade friction has four levels from the narrow sense to the broad sense:Reduce the trade deficit, realize the structural reform of fair trade, the strategic containment of the hegemonic countries against the emerging powers, and the ideological confrontation of the Cold War mentality.

Reducing the trade deficit can be alleviated in stages through bilateral efforts, but if the United States unilaterally asks China to make adjustments, without thoroughly changing the fundamental issues such as its high consumption and low savings model, export restrictions on high-tech products to China, and the arrogant privileges of the US dollar, the US trade deficit cannot be fundamentally reduced. It is nothing but a shift of the US foreign trade deficit from Japan to China after the US-Japan trade war. It will be transferred from China to Southeast Asia in the future.

In order to realize the structural reform of fair trade, China can make positive reforms, which is also the need of China's own development. But,All these are difficult to meet the intention of the US strategy to contain China's high-tech upgrading and the rise of a great power.

Sino-US trade friction is the best awakening agent.，

1) We must be soberly aware of the huge gap between China and the United States in the areas of scientific and technological innovation, high-end manufacturing, financial services, university education, military strength, etc.

2) it must be clearly recognized that China still has a lot of work to do in the areas of reducing investment restrictions, reducing tariffs, protecting property rights, and reforming state-owned enterprises.

3) We must be soberly aware that Sino-US relations are moving from win-win cooperation to competition and cooperation and even strategic containment.

4) We must unswervingly promote a new round of reform and opening up and maintain strategic stability.

At the same time, we should also clearly and profoundly realize the great potential and advantages of China's economic development. The new round of reform and opening up will release huge dividends, and the best investment opportunity lies in China.：

1) China has the world's largest single market (nearly 1.4 billion people) and the world's largest middle-income group (400m people)

2) the process of urbanization in China is still 20% away from the developed countries, and the potential is huge.

3) China has nearly 900 million people in labor resources, more than 700 million people employed, 170 million high-quality talents with higher education and vocational education, and more than 8 million college graduates every year, and the demographic dividend turns to talent dividend.

4) the new round of reform and opening up will open a new cycle and release great vitality.

At the beginning of the Sino-US trade friction, there were serious misjudgments in the mainstream media and the market, and the views such as "Sino-US relations are no better or worse" and "Sino-US trade frictions have little impact on China" are popular.

But,At the beginning, we clearly put forward some judgments that are different from popular market views but are constantly verified by the subsequent evolution of the situation: "Sino-US trade frictions are long-term and increasingly serious" and "this is containment in the name of trade protectionism." the best response for our side is to promote a new round of reform and opening up with greater determination and courage and unswervingly. In this regard, we must remain sober and calm and make strategic efforts. "

The real problem in the United States is not China, but itself, how to solve populism, excessive consumption patterns, the wide gap between the rich and the poor, the Triffin problem, and so on.The main reason why the United States succeeded in curbing the rise of Japan and maintaining economic hegemony in the 1980s was not the trade war between the United States and Japan itself, but Reagan's supply-side reform and Volcker's success in curbing inflation.

The real problem for China is not the United States, but itself, how to build a high-level market economy and an open system, and a trade war is essentially a reform war.At a deeper level, China needs to formulate a new nation-building strategy.

China's rapid economic growth over the past 40 years has benefited from two clear nation-building strategies: reform and opening up at home and keeping a low profile to the outside world.

Today, China is in a period of strategic transition and strategic confusion, and the key problem to be solved is the new nation-building strategy, that is, in the face of the evolution trend of the future political, economic and social situation and the change of world leadership, determine a long-term strategic position that is beneficial to me, similar to the continental balance of power in Britain, isolationism in the United States and China's concealment at that time.

China's internal nation-building strategy is very clear, that is, to continue to deepen reform and opening up. External aspectChina's most important diplomatic relationship is Sino-US relations. The essence of Sino-US relations is the relationship model between emerging powers and incumbent hegemony, that is, the choice of seclusion and isolation, competition and confrontation or cooperation to follow.

Judging from the history of the rise of emerging powers in the past few hundred years, the trade war, economic war, resource war and financial war that China is facing are inevitable and must be faced.

However, today's Sino-US relations are quite different from those of Britain and Germany, Britain and the United States, the United States and Japan, and the United States and the Soviet Union in the past. it is neither the life-and-death relationship of all-round competition and confrontation between Britain and Germany, the United States and the Soviet Union, nor the same kind of cooperative follow-up and succession relationship between Britain and the United States. it's more about competition and cooperation. therefore,

1) under the background of the hegemonic thinking that the United States returns to its own interests first, China needs to establish and promote a beautiful vision and advanced civilization that is widely attractive to people all over the world.

2) under the background of the return of the United States to trade protectionism, it will go to the world with a more open atmosphere.

3) under the background of the war on all sides of the United States, comprehensively and deeply establish a free trade system with Southeast Asia, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Central Asia to achieve win-win cooperation.；

4) History is regular, and countries that constantly absorb the fruits of external civilization and learn and make progress will continue to be strong.

5) any country that rests on its laurels and hinders the trend of the times, no matter how powerful it is, is bound to decline.

From the perspective of history and international experience, the game between China and the United States is nothing but four endings.

1) China is contained and the United States maintains world hegemony, such as the trade war between the United States and Japan.

2) China and the United States decoupled, forming two opposing camps and falling into the "Thucydides trap", such as the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.

3) China and the United States cooperate and govern together to form a G2 group with China and the United States as the core, such as Germany and France to promote European integration.

4) the rise of China and the decline of the United States, such as most of the hegemonic powers and emerging powers in history. As long as China maintains strategic stability, does its own thing well, and firmly promotes a new round of reform and opening up, nothing can stop China's great rejuvenation.

China should try its best to avoid the first and second outcomes of Sino-US relations, and try its best to move towards the third and fourth outcomes of Sino-US co-governance and China's rise.

The United States will never give up the dominance of world hegemony or accept the rise of China and the decline of the United States, so the game between China and the United States will still be long-term and comprehensive.