Chinese academics are trying to make sense of Donald Trump's election to the White House in November 2016.

China's top think tank has turned to a New York Times bestseller to understand what drives US President Donald Trump.

Amid Trump's increasingly hostile tweets about China, as a $US100 billion (NZ$150 billion) trade war escalates, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), the top advisory group to Chinese leaders, has revealed it was doing "a lot of research" on the election of Trump.

Nancy Isenberg's best seller White Trash - The 400 year untold history of class in America, is at the top of the reading list at the academy's Institute of American Studies.

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"They think Chinese stole their jobs and companies moved from the US to other countries," said Zhao Mei, the managing editor of the Chinese Journal of American Studies, summarising the main thesis of White Trash.

OCTAVIO JONES/AP Donald Trump's supporters fill the stands during a rally at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa last month.

In Ohio, "white people" haven't worked for several generations and don't leave Ohio, she told reporters at a briefing on the trade war in Beijing on Monday.

"Trump represents that political class, and I don't know how China should respond," she said.

Isenberg has been in constant demand with US media since 2016 to explain the phenomena that put Trump in the White House.

In a sign of China's growing frustration with the Trump administration, Yu Yongding of CASS's Institute of World Economics and Politics blasted Trump's "stupid decisions", and said Trump was consumed by domestic political issues and appeared to have no interest in resolving the trade fight.

"The tensions are related to President Trump himself, whether he can win the mid-terms or escape impeachment," he said, in unusually strong public comments.

Mid-term elections will be held in the United States on November 6.

China was "confused" about how to respond to Trump's trade demands because the US had "not shown sincerity" in negotiations, said Wu Baiyi, director of the Institute of American Studies.

In the opening months of the trade dispute, Chinese media had been instructed to avoid personal criticism of Trump. But this has changed, after Beijing accused Trump of backing out of a deal the Chinese negotiators believed they had struck in Washington in May to lower the trade surplus and avoid further tariffs.

ANDY WONG/AP Chinese President Xi Jinping chats to Donald Trump during a welcome ceremony in Beijing in April 2017.

As talks with a Chinese delegation began in Washington last week, the Trump administration imposed another $US35 billion (NZ$52.3 billion) in tariffs on Chinese goods including semiconductors.

On Monday, Trump appeared to confirm the view that he was no longer interested in a deal, and was focused on the domestic political battle.

"They want to talk," Trump said, referring to Chinese officials. "It's just not the right time to talk right now, to be honest with China."

The potential for Trump to carry through his next threat, of imposing a 25 per cent tariff on an extra $US200 billion (NZ$299 billion) in Chinese consumer goods next month, has rattled Beijing.

The Chinese researchers said unlike the US's earlier trade war with Japan, over manufactured goods, the rise of global supply chains meant the US and Chinese economies were intertwined and Trump's tariffs would also hit US companies and consumers.

China's newspapers have prominently reported testimony by 360 US companies before the US Trade Representatives Office this week about the damage they think a 25 per cent tariff on Chinese goods -ranging from handbags to baseball gloves - would cause their businesses.

Yu said China wouldn't retaliate by extending the trade war to other areas, such as finance.

Instead, China would wait it out. "If you kill a thousand enemies you will lose 800 of your own soldiers," he said of the looming $US200 billion (NZ$299 billion) in tariffs.

Cui Fan, a member of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission said China should speed up its reform and opening up of markets, and should be open to new rules within the World Trade Organisation system. He said the worst situation would be the US abandoning the global trading system.