Analysis: Trump fired the latest tariff shot at China. Is Beijing prepared to make it a trade war?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

86% : Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump attend a welcome ceremony when Trump visited Beijing in 2017.
73% : Beijing has enjoyed an unexpectedly warm start to Trump's second term - a welcome development for Chinese leaders as they seek to avoid escalating trade and tech frictions at the same time as the export-reliant country's economy slows. Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Trump had what the US leader called a "very good" phone call days before Trump took office, and his inaugural ceremony was attended by the highest-level Chinese official to ever be dispatched to such an event.
60% : Instead, the expectation within China has been that Trump may be biding his time until he receives the results of a larger probe into US-China economic and trade relations that he commissioned in an executive order signed on his first day in office.
51% : A ramping up of the use of these controls, as well as retaliatory tariffs, could be moves for Beijing in the weeks ahead or if Trump does levy higher tariffs in the coming months.
47% : Before any actual actions are taken, Trump can still use ambiguous strategies to pressure opponents and wait for substantive concessions from them," it continued.
47% : China sees "Trump as somebody who they can negotiate with, that there's room for negotiation," she added.
44% : "Trump may rely on the upcoming results of trade investigations to impose or expand tariffs on specific countries, testing their tolerance and willingness to negotiate," an analysis published Sunday on the website of Shanghai-based think tank Fudan Development Institute said.
42% : Meanwhile, Beijing has already taken steps to insulate itself from some of the impacts of the tariffs, which Trump himself has admitted could bring "pain" for Americans - an admission that follows concerns from economists and members of Congress that Americans will bear the cost of the measures.
39% : Trump has - at least in his rhetoric - largely linked these duties to the role of Chinese suppliers in the fentanyl trade, not the gaping trade imbalance between the US and China.
38% : In the meantime, Beijing has time to build a relationship with Trump, entertain him in the Chinese capital or push for a preemptive deal to avert more severe economic penalties.
37% : In 2018, Trump heightened or imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of Chinese imports to the US, with Beijing hitting back with what analysts say were some $185 billion of its own tariffs on US goods.
35% : The 10% tariffs are a far cry from the upwards of 60% tariffs that Trump suggested he could levy on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.

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