It does sound appalling. But what the Chinese leadership and business elites wanted to do at that time was try to diffuse tensions with the US and try to maintain the status quo. They thought that they just needed to give-in abit to satisfy Trump's ego, and then things might go back to business as usual. For example, China's relative meekness during the ZTE fiasco. China was expecting that Trump, a businessman, could be reasoned with at the end of the day. It was naive of China, but that was its foreign policy norm at that time.Quite frankly I am appalled by how many kneelers there are. It was only through the stupidity of enemy that China made the right call. This stupidity cannot be relied on. China should make good choice independent of enemy being stupid.
What China wasn't expecting, is that Trump was far from a reasonable person. Trump and the US establishment had just initiated their project to halt China's economic rise. They saw China's acquiescence as weakness, and proceeded to escalate, targeting Huawei next, and demanded even more capitulation from China. Not only did they wanted China to stop the Made In China 2025 program. They wanted China to open up it's financial system to Wall Street banksters without oversight. They also demanded that China buy more US stuff than it needed.
After any trade meeting where China agreed to a number of Trump's demands, he then escalates the trade war. After the first meeting, he launched a barrage of tariffs on China. After another meeting, Meng Wanzhou was kidnapped in Canada. That was the point where China had woken up that the trade war is real. In between all that, there was the Uighur genocide, forced labour BS campaign. There was that HK attempted colour revolution. The that African swine fever outbreak in China. The stupid HK, Xinjiang, and Tibet Freedom bills getting passed in the US Congress. The numerous sanctions on Chinese firms and government people. Finally after the last US-China trade meeting, where China had agreed to another trade deal with Trump, Covid happened.
China was hoping that Biden would bring things back to business as usual. But alas they were wrong again. The problem is not just the US presidents, it's the whole US establishment. China had wisen up already. Now there is no going back. Trump is gonna return to office in 2025 for a Round 2 with China. But I'm sure that this time, China will be ready for him.