Trump has put China's president-for-life Xi in a box. Quoting from a Bloomberg article , Sundance notes that the Chinese never give up something once attained, and the concept of accepting the lesser of two evils doesn't even occur in Chinese negotiative thinking. "China NEVER faces lose/lose situations. The Chinese culture doesn't even have a frame of reference for a position that includes 'less losing' amid better options."

Xi doesn't want to meet with Trump at the G20 Summit in Japan because it would make him look bad after Trump slapped tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump insists on such a meeting and has said that if Xi won't meet, tariffs could go even higher than the 25% already imposed. Either way, meet or not-meet, Xi loses face at home.

Xi is checkmated, and he asked for it through his own bullying politics. Hard to feel bad for the boy, but you have to give him credit. In his inscrutable way, President Xi doesn't look a bit different from how he did two short years ago when showing off his strutting army to Trump in Beijing.

But he's got to be feeling uncomfortable at missed opportunities. This is what can happen when you go up against a strategic genius. You'd think Xi would have figured out by now that he's not dealing with an ordinary Western politician. Trump gave Xi a way out early on with a face-saving chance to reduce Chinese cheating and stealing Western patents and technology. Xi turned that down and now is facing the consequences. The muggers are getting mugged, and not in dark back alleys, but in broad daylight and according to all accepted rules of diplomacy.

And to think the world (and we, to be sure) had been thinking of Donald Trump in terms of bluster, beauty pageants, and reality television.

It's almost too delicious.