Michael Pillsbury, a Hudson Institute academic who advises the Trump administration on China, also told the newspaper that the Hong Kong legislation will inform discussions within the Chinese Communist Party as to their U.S. strategy.
Michael Pillsbury, a China expert at the conservative Hudson Institute with close ties to the Trump administration, said that Mr. Trump could blunt the measure’s impact on the trade talks by delaying his signature until after such a deal is reached.
“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.
Michael Pillsbury, an adviser to Trump on China issues, said in September that if the trade talks failed the president could increase the tariffs on Chinese goods to “50 per cent or 100 per cent”.