BEIJING (Reuters) - China will acknowledge concessions made in any trade deal with the United States for the sake of stabilizing shaky relations, but is unlikely to yield to demands it alter its economic model even if faced with continued tariffs, many trade experts believe.
U.S. President Donald Trump has warned he could walk away from a China deal if it were not good enough, even as his advisers touted "fantastic" progress towards an agreement to end a dispute that has put tit-for-tat tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of each others' goods.
Such optimism has taken a different shape in Beijing, where the delay on a once "hard" March 1 deadline for a U.S. tariff hike reinforced views that Trump's appetite for tough measures has weakened as the 2020 presidential election draws closer and a strong U.S. economy shows initial signs of flagging.
Chinese concessions in any deal are likely to fall short of U.S. demands for deep change in the way the world's second-largest economy works.
Revamping decades of state planning will not happen overnight, Chinese experts argue.
And President Xi Jinping faces political realities at home, where being seen as
The United States has long complained that Beijing has systematically obtained American companies' intellectual property through coercion and outright theft. But improving copyright and trademark enforcement is seen by hardliners in Washington as a practical and self-interested move for China, now that it has innovative companies of its own.
China verifiably cracking down on the more existential threat of forced technology transfer - which officials deny actually occurs - or substantially curbing the influence of state-owned companies in the economy is seen as less likely.