Fingerpointing at China when they reacted far more decisively then the West did seems... A tad off the mark.
If this originated in Milan, Kansas, or Bangalore, we'd all be in the exact same boat today.
Hell, if the outbreak started in Kansas, we would probably have a hundred thousand dead by now, with our supreme leader still insisting that the virus will magically go away in three weeks.
For the first two weeks of January.
When they got to the point of locking down an entire city, it became pretty clear to everyone that it was a serious situation.
We looked at that, and did... Nothing.
It's apparently been memory-holed, but during this period it was the US media calling it "no worse than the flu", not the other way around.
* Shipping a laughably insufficient number of test kits that didn't work, while banning private labs from developing their own tests. We still have a crippling test kit shortage.
* Asking people traveling from China to self-quarantine, and not following up.
* No stockpiles of necessary medical supplies.
Getting called names has never stopped him from rolling out bad policy in the past. I don't see why it can be credited for stopping him from rolling out good policy this time.
They have the US by the balls.
The United States was built on the foundation of transportation (roads and highways), automobiles, mortgages, and travel. These industries built up the middle class, by providing jobs for home, and profits from exports to abroad. Then came tech and the massive windfall from that.
They essentially have the population of 4 United States, that they can essentially just compete internally among themselves, while still producing products for export to abroad.
They can just follow the same playbook here.
* Infrastructure, check, they have highways, airports, and also, high speed trains.
* Automobiles, check, they have the largest car market in the world. And they are continually working with, and learning from, their European partners. Eventually, they’ll get good enough to not need external partnerships.
* Mortgages, check, lots of high rises, since that’s the only way to house so many people.
* Travel, in progress, they’re working really hard to make a commercial airliner. This will take another 20 years, but Boeing messed up with their 737 Max fiasco, which may give them an opening sooner. But most of the parts to this airplane comes from American companies, so if Trump wants, then he can really crush their airplane independence dreams, at least for 10 years.
* Technology, in progress, they have mostly web companies, and application companies, but not yet core technology companies. They still don’t quite have CPU and memory chip companies yet, and they outsourced manufacturing to Taiwan. This is where Trump can really crush them, but again, at a heavy price, and only for 10 years.
In the end, anything is possible, but I highly doubt they are interested in squeezing the US by the balls anyways. They are finding it more profitable to maintain friendly terms with the US, and sell them cheaper trinkets, than taking a confrontational approach, and getting into a hot war, where nobody wins, except Lockheed.
China cares for its people by imprisoning them with brute technology and camps?
I have a hard time seeing China emerging as a winner from this crisis.