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Experts claim that US President Donald Trump’s administration “does not quite know how to deal with China.” The two countries have tense relations once more.

The most recent raging occurred when Beijing increased its restraining order for rare-earth metal exports on October 9 and the list’s components.

Rare-earth metals are used in a variety of daily and crucial industries, including electric vehicles, smartphones, laptops, and defense equipment, in China with the largest reserves and the majority of the country’s processing facilities.

In a first, it also mandated that nations possess a permit to export rare-earth magnets and some semiconductor materials that have even trace amounts of minerals from China or products based on Chinese technology.

China’s actions on rare earths came after the US expanded its Entity List, a list of foreigners who can only be identified by specific foreigners, organizations, or governments, further limiting China’s ability to obtain the most advanced semiconductor chips, and enacted levies on Chinese-linked ships to both strengthen the US shipbuilding sector and lessen China’s influence on the world shipping trade. China retaliated by charging US-owned, US-operated, US-built, or flagged vessels against its own wishes.

According to Vina Nadjibulla, vice president for research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, “for the US, its actions on chip exports and shipping industry fees were not related to the trade agreement with China.”

According to Nadjibulla, the two nations have since engaged in an “information war,” in which they have each blamed the other for holding the world hostage due to their respective policies.

Beyond the rhetoric, China is actually stepping up its game.

With its increased export restrictions on rare earths, China is for the first time carrying out this extraterrestrial action, which also applies to other nations. They are prepared to respond to every US escalation and bring the US down, according to Nadjibulla. This trade war is “a whole lot different from what we were going through three months ago.”

According to Dexter Tiff Roberts, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Global China Hub, China “has decided that the leverage is on their side,” in the lead-up to a planned meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month, the meeting is now resumed.

Roberts remarked, “They are all over the place right now, if you look at the Trump administration’s approach.”

Roberts made reference to the numerous tariff threats the US has made to China and to specific industries, as well as the soon-to-be-announced carve-outs that were made, as well as to the statements made at the Trump-Xi meeting, where Trump claimed it was going to stop and then reverse that two days later.

Roberts remarked that the Trump administration is unsure of how to handle China. They are unsure of China’s willingness to accept a lot of pain and are reluctant to accept US threats.

Beijing, on the other hand, has realized that Trump wants his state visit to seal that, perhaps because “he feels that is important to his credentials as a big deal maker,” but that he can’t get there without offering more to China.

China realized that it could work more closely in the meeting’s pre-conference.

Wei Liang, a professor with a focus on Chinese economic foreign policy and international trade, is in agreement.

Trump reportedly has a track record of being a “trooper on the TACO,” she said, referring to a phrase used by a Financial Times columnist in May that reads “Trump always chickens out” when he announces tariffs, announces exemptions, and then announces implementation dates and pushes out implementation dates.

He will definitely be more flexile in making concessions because he cares about stock market reactions more than any other US president. According to Liang, this contradiction has been uncovered by his negotiation partners.

China’s defiant stance comes at a time when it has, Liang added, have its own political concerns.

The domestic economy is a “black box” with no reliable data on growth, employment, or other factors, but experts in China agree that the country has experienced slow economic growth, increased unemployment, and been hit by the tariffs.

Xi can use the opportunity to explain to his domestic audience that the country’s problems are caused by Trump’s policies and that the world is suffering because of those tariffs, Liang said, not because of Chinese policies, as China opened its four-day fourth plenary session on Monday.

Possible decoupling

All of this also indicates that Beijing appears more than ever to be ready to “decouple” from the US, a significant shift in mindset since, prior to, the idea was that both countries would face a “lose-lose” situation, Liang told Al Jazeera.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious infrastructure project that connects East Asia with Europe, has since expanded to Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, but it has also diversified its exports to other nations, particularly those that are related to it.

Even when it comes to things like high-tech chip equipment and soya beans, it can find other suppliers or has learned to adapt to that need, Liang noted.

China has introduced a number of national security laws, including its version of the US Entity List, through which it is imposing restrictions on those exports, Nadjibulla said, especially in the years since the US-China trade war started under Trump’s first term.

“Everyone should have been doing their preparations the way the Chinese have done it.” When the US government changed after the first Trump administration, we breathed a sigh of relief, but China continued to prepare, she said.

According to Ukrainian authorities, Russian airstrikes on Ukraine’s Chernihiv region have resulted in at least four fatalities and ten injuries, leaving many people without water and power.

The Energy Ministry reported on Tuesday morning that the regional capital, also known as Chernihiv, and the province’s northern region lost all electricity supply as a result of power plant strikes.

Four civilians were killed and ten others were hurt in a later Russian drone attack in Novhorod-Siverskyi, according to the state emergency service.

“Novorod-Siverskyi was attacked by the enemy with strike drones today. Four people were killed and ten more were hurt, including a 10-year-old child, according to preliminary information, according to the emergency service’s Tuesday statement on Telegram.

Local authorities claimed that significant damage had been done to the town in northern Ukraine, which is located 32 kilometers from the Russian border.

People in Chernihiv poured water from cisterns on the streets and headed for “invincibility points,” or tents with stoves and generators set up by authorities to give locals some access to heat and electricity.

Local authorities claimed that Russia had circled drones above the damaged energy plants, preventing the repair process to begin. Oleksandr Lomako, the acting mayor of Chernihiv, claimed Moscow was attempting to stifle local residents’ access to power and heat in the run-up to the icy winter.

They simply hit and destroy everything,” they say. Nataliia, 43, told the news agency Reuters, “There is no end to this.”

Later, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, reported on Telegram that repairs were being made. He claimed that “Russia uses the cold to terrorize people and murder them.”

Vladimir Putin, the country’s president, claims to be ready for diplomacy and peace talks, but in reality Russia launched a brutal missile and drone attack on X, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

The nearby Sumy region, where nine people were reported to have been hurt, was also targeted by the Russian attack.

In February 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia has consistently targeted Ukrainian energy sources since the start of the conflict, forcing the nation to rely on subzero power to power its homes and businesses.

Donald Trump, the president of the United States, announced last week that he would meet with Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, and has been trying to put an end to the conflict for months.

A meeting was not scheduled, according to Russian and US officials who spoke on Tuesday.

A senior White House official told Al Jazeera, “President Trump has no intention of meeting with President Putin in the near future.”

Moscow added that preparations “could take time,” and that it was also against the idea of a meeting.

No precise timeframe was set for this, according to Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman. “Serious preparation is required,” the saying goes.

Following a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at stumbling upon agreements to end Russia’s war, the summit was called off.

Trump has suggested sending Ukraine Tomahawk missiles, which would allow Ukraine to launch further into Russian territory, as Putin appears to be getting angry with Putin’s position on ending the war.

Zelenskyy arranged to meet with Trump in Washington last week, but he did not.

The US president reportedly agreed with Putin that Ukraine must cede all of its eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, despite the rumored tension at the meeting on Friday.

Putin and other EU leaders accused the Ukrainian president of putting a stop to the war by putting up temporary diplomatic efforts and opposed any move to have Kyiv seize land that had been seized by Russian forces in exchange for peace.