Forbes says today that China was "blindsided" by the sanctions against Huawei in the buildup to trade negotiations. Steve Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary was on Fox Business yesterday saying these sanctions are part of the Justice Department actions and have nothing to do with trade talks. While I do agree that the Justice Department has not been very concerned with how its arrest warrant for a Huawei official or sanctions affect the outcomes of trade talks - in both cases their timing sucked - we have to consider they have finally gotten around to doing something on a case that started in 2013. That is not exactly lightning speed. Justice is slow rolling everything on Huawei, and they really don't care how it makes the negotiations with China more difficult.
The Forbes story is what the Chinese want us to believe. They are hardly ever blindsided by anything a government does. They have employees everywhere on the hill and working for governments all over the world. Their intelligence services have links into all aspects of our government decision making. They are not surprised, and not blindsided by much of anything we do. It would be nice if we could blindside them now and again, but we can't.
Second, the Chinese trade delegation has a task that is not related to anything about Huawei, though it may affect them. The US wants reciprocal trade and there is none in telecommunications. China does not allow US carriers to buy into the Chinese telecom infrastructure, but they want to complain when Huawei is denied a chance to do the same thing in the US. Neither side will allow the telecoms of the other country to buy into the infrastructures of the other and that is not going to change after these trade talks. There will be trade, but not in this area because both countries believe this is a national security issue and not a trade issue. Mnuchin even alluded to his membership in the National Security Council.
China doesn't need help in these trade talks, especially help from the US press corps.
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