I mostly agree with this. For Trump, the ZTE thing was a sort of a stunt to threaten China, but the political establishment took a more hardline stance. Similarly, most of the established politicians oppose trade wars, and yet Chuck Schumer was all for tariffs against China and has been so for more than a decade. So the difference between Trump and the traditional politicians (both Dems and R's) is not that he is more friendly or less friendly to China. The difference is that Trump is a loose cannon, or a "wildfire" as you say, and this is amplified by the fact that the people around him have no experience in government.
This distinction is important, because while China may be hit by *some* of these random shots, the American position will be damaged by *most* of the wildfire. Since this is happening at a time when the US is becoming increasingly hostile towards China, it may be better to look for opportunities to exploit, rather than to help push him out. The lack of strategic thinking in the US does not hurt China.
Meanwhile, China has to deal with the trade war. In my view, the current approach seems to be "firmly" but not loudly, and I think this is right. The first aim for China has to be to preserve its economic momentum (China 2025), its economic relationships with other countries both near and far, and it's relationships with foreign corporations, even American ones. Damaging the US economy should be secondary, (i.e., not loud) but the damage, though not large, should be real and permanent, so that the Chuck Schumers learn a lesson.
Sure, China has a lot of cards it can play. Navarro claims China's trade surplus is its weakness in the trade war, and he says China has already run out of bullets because it only added 60 billion in tariffs. But the balance in the service trade is in the opposite direction. China can cut tourism to the US as well as reduce the number of students studying there, for example, and some of this will happen spontaneously anyway. The overall balance (goods + services) is still in China's favor, but when you add in products produced and sold in China by American corporations (GM, Ford), the total now goes in favor of the US. So it is China that has more bullets, this without counting anything like dollar reserves, or the $26 billion in IPR royalties it pays yearly to the US. But China hurts itself also with some of these measures, and probably it is better to exploit American weaknesses asymmetrically.
