If you want to cut a deal with China the first rule is you don't meddle in their internal affairs and you don't undertake what they regard as provocative actions with Taiwan- which they regard as an internal matter.
They have to be worried about Hong Kong too, and while the Chinese government blames that unrest on western agitation, I have no knowledge that there has been much of that. But that's another matter that puts the communist party on defensive. Given the extraordinary rise in their standard of living, the Chinese people will take a lot of pain if it is made to seem like a matter of national sovereignty and honor.
So I guess what the amateur Hour is up to here is that they know their hamfisted trade war is a losing cause so they're trying to pick a bigger fight to deflect from that.
Probably not the best idea for the first and second military and economic powers to be facing off on that basis.
But "patriotism" generally sells- on both sides.
