Ann: QUARTERLY ACTIVITIES REPORT - SEPTEMBER QTR 2018, page-7

Trump has directly criticized China's 2025 goals... China will ignore him. There is no way China is going to allow their development plans to be interfered with. That means full steam ahead on the 'One belt one road' initiative meaning continued imports of raw materials and financed by the Chinese Govt. Also means continued investment in electric vehicles... in which copper is a big input. It looks to me that China intends to be THE major exporter of EV's and that is how they will manage the debt they are currently incurring.

imo... The trade war is as much political as it is commercial. In part it is an attempt to reverse the transfer of wealth to China and in part to slow China's political rise. China's response so far has been to take the US on.... and the rhetoric coming from China has been growing more hostile as time goes by.

Below is a link to an article written in 2008 which does a good job of explaining China's political needs... in particular the one belt one road and why they won't alter course.
This paragraph in particular sums it up...
The greatest military threat to China comes from the U.S. Navy. The Chinese have become highly dependent on seaborne trade and the U.S. Navy is in a position to blockade China’s ports if it wished. Should the United States do that, it would cripple China. Therefore,China’s primary military interest is to make such a blockade impossible. It is interesting this article was written several years before China created the artificial islands which are now military bases in the South China Sea.
https://www.alacra.com/acm/2048_sample.pdf