Beijing — China may look beyond tit-for-tat tariffs in the looming trade war with the US, analysts say, with a range of creative options at its disposal, including targeting Hollywood films or dragging its feet on North Korea. The fear of a debilitating trade war between the US and China is rising after US President Trump said up to $450bn in Chinese goods — nearly all of its exports to the US — could be in the firing line for higher taxes. Beijing immediately responded, calling Trump’s threat "blackmail" and warning it could hit back with "strong countermeasures combining quantitative and qualitative measures". But with only $130bn of imports from the US in 2017, how would China hit back? "Retaliation has to be done, if you don’t retaliate you lose even more, so that’s why you have a trade war," said Yukon Huang, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has discussed the trade tensions with top Chinese officials. Other countries had learnt from Japan’s...
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