Although the writer of this article above could be right, we can raise two counter points.

1. What if the Trump administration is just as chaotic as it looks from the outside? Trump has fired more people in his administration than he did in all of his Apprentice TV shows.

The prof argues there is a detailed strategy in place to confront China. What if there is no method to the madness? There is no proof that there is. Execution of policy (ie strategy) could be a real for President Trump.

Also, the high turnover of important people, all that really means at the end is only one guy is truly in charge. You're fired!

2. The prof argues that this strategy is part of the negotiating tactics to be used to level the playing field as they like to call it.

At this point, it is good to highlight the differences between someone in the Ivory Tower and someone in the trenches. Comrade Xi, he's done everything in his career. Do not know if he has a PhD, but he came up through the trenches, working on farms and bigger things later.

The writer of this article has no street smarts. How do we know that?

Anyone can see, that the problem with this strategy if that really is what they are trying to do according to the prof, is that what if Comrade Mao, Deng, or Xi, - calls your bluff.

Then what? More tariffs? That's why the prof works in an Ivory Tower.

Also we must add that US tech firms are willing to pay the price to enter the Chinese market because they want to make money in what will be the world's biggest market in single country, growing faster than anyone else. That is what we call leverage.

Leverage is something Trump understands. He's trying to create it when he finally negotiates with China. Hard to do when the mass firing creates a chaotic work place IMHO.