Who blinks first to agree on tariffs?

In the first hours on Thursday, the Chinese state media announced that the United States sought to initiate tariff talks with Beijing.

It was news. The rest of the world expected to hear how surprisingly high tariffs – up to 245% of Chinese exports to the United States – a throttle trade between the two largest economies in the world, raising the ghost of the recession.

Presidential Administration Donald Trump has used different channels to contact Beijing, according to a message on the social media platform Weibo from Yuantantan, an account related to China Central Television (CCTV).

A statement cited by unnamed people, acquainted with this issue, occurred less than a week after Trump stated that the conversations between the two countries had already been conducted – Beijing’s proposal was later denied.

“China does not need to talk to the United States,” Yuuantantan said on Thursday. “In terms of negotiations, the US should be more disturbing participants.”

The statement shows a series of statements and refusals both in the US and China, as each side refuses to publicly initiate discussions.

The question is not whether there will be discussions, but if, under what circumstances and by freedom.

Experts characterize the clutter as a chicken game between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as both men try to save the face, hidden pursuing a mutually advantageous result, namely, de-escalation of the trade war.

“I guess some of this back, because neither Washington nor Beijing want to look the way they are inferior,” says Ja Jan Chong, Associate Professor of the Department of Political Science of Singapore National University.

“(But) de -escalation will be on the common benefit of both sides, so there is some general incentive for this.”

Wen-you Song, Academic Member of the Australian Center in China in the world, puts it in another way: “It is like two racing cars that go to each other: the one who will first be considered as the weaker of the two parties. And none of the parties want to look soft.”

Thus, the leader who admits that he first started the tariff talks will be considered as one that threatens his position in the negotiations.

“Anyone who seems desperately losing negotiations,” says Mr. Song. “Both sides want to display the other side as more desperate.”

This peculiar pattern – where both sides are looking for the same result, but no one wants to be the first to propose it – led to the tactics of “constructive ambiguity”: the intentional use of the language or claims so vague that each party may say that it is in the right one.

This is the tactic that Mr. Sun indicates the explanation of the post weibo yuyuantantian.

“This is a Beijing who is trying to learn the possibility of using words to create a lowering for both sides so that they can gradually climb down from this escalation spiral,” he says.

One way to avoid this chicken game is if the third party is mediation by offering both sides. Another option, explained by Mr. Song, is “a much more free understanding of what” means the other side. ”

So, the side that really comes to the table is still able to characterize it as an answer, not the first step.

In the case of Trump and Si, it would also mean that tariff talks could start with both executives claiming that they have reached some victory in the trade war.

The optics here is important. According to Mr. Chong, the de-escalation is one or another top priority for Trump and XI- “to win for its internal audience”.

“Trump obviously wants to show that he made Beijing capitaly. And from the Chinese People’s Republic, he probably wants to show his own people and the world that he managed to make Trump more intelligent and moderate,” says Mr. Chong.

Both leaders face tariffs on the inner front. Trump this week struggled to stop fear of recession as Fresh data It is shown that the US economy has signed a contract in the first quarter for the first time since 2022.

Meanwhile xi – who to the tariffs was Battle Sustainable low consumption, property crisis and unemployment – should reassure the Chinese population that it can bring to the trading war and protect the economy that fought for the rebound after the pandemic.

“Both (Trump and XI) admit that at this point the trade war will not be the result of the winners for both parties,” Song says.

“Trump admits that he is not going to get to 100% what he wants, so he tries to find a concession point if China can just win, especially at home purposes.”

And although China does not want, it adds: “They are very stuck at the right price.”

For XI, Mr. Song called the situation as “two levels”.

“The Chinese side must manage the US-China bilateral talks, while Beijing must save a sufficient amount of the face so that the Chinese leadership could contain this story about” East and the West is declining, “he says.

“The east to west is not a rise to the east.”

At the time of writing, the US did not deny applications in China trying to initiate negotiations. But the fact that both sides made this statement shows that there is “some contact”, according to Mr. Chong.

“Both sides are talking,” he says. “And this is a sign that there is a certain opportunity for some housing to be achieved.”

But the beginning of the negotiations does not mean that the US -China relations – what was the years before Trump started a trade war – close to content.

Mr. For the first time, he believes that “post” suggests that both sides have not reached the point of view “when they both try to look for out.”

“(Every party) may hope that there are concessions on the other hand, so they will have such a confrontation until they see which side flashes in the first place.