“There’s an ongoing debate in Beijing between reformers who would like phase one and hard-liners who see themselves surrounded by hostile forces led by the United States, including in Hong Kong,” said Michael Pillsbury, a China scholar at the Hudson Institute who advises the Trump administration.
In The Hundred-Year Marathon Michael Pillsbury states that “China . . . regularly hacks into foreign commercial entities . . . making [it] the world’s largest perpetrator of IP theft. This allows the Chinese to cheat their way up the technology ladder.”
Pillsbury (who, by the way, advises the White House including the president himself) thinks the clash is intensifying because President Trump’s China scepticism is disrupting the Chinese plan. They see his talk of restoring America’s greatness as an affront to their own dreams.