Their entire foreign policy has been stick only. No carrot. They want to reestablish the US as the sole power for domestic purposes and their own pride and ego. The only way to achieve that is by demanding global submission by force.
Looking at the Bloomberg article. It sounds like the US is demanding China capitulates first before the US agrees to any negotiations. However, if you capitulate once then they will push for total capitulation on all demands before considering any discussions.
The Bloomberg article did the typical publish American demand but not Chinese demands, but they did report both sides were talking past each other, which is to say China didn't care what Americans had to say.
More importantly, if you actually read the details, they said US refused to implement China's demand that US implement "consumer side" changes to fentanyl, i.e. China's demanding US make domestic policy changes as condition for talks, in other words China's basically saying "both fentanyl and tariff are your problem, not mine"
This is the fundamental gap in American understanding, they and a lot of people start with the axiom that the other side doesn't want to fight so America can use "carrot and stick" approach to coerce action. But China does want to fight, China is the one with both bigger carrot and a bigger stick and China has been itching to give America a beating. In this situation playing tough just land you a one way ticket to find out land.