Editor's Note: Chris Hawke is a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and a journalist who has reported for over two decades from Beijing, New York, the United Nations, Tokyo, Bangkok, Islamabad and Kabul for AP, UPI, and CBS. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Recent breakthroughs by negotiating teams from the U.S. and China have raised hope that the trade war between the two nations can be walked back. Talk of a deal being instituted in phases and reversing tariffs is a cause for optimism.

The Trump impeachment proceedings are giving China valuable insights into how the Oval Office operates.

They are also putting the U.S. president on the defensive. This would be a great time for China to offer Trump a face-saving win that could distract the public from daily testimony by officials that Trump has offended, outraged or humiliated.

If China can understand that Trump isn't focused on foreign affairs per se, but rather how international relations can be used to control the daily news cycle and help win re-election, China will be well on the way to winning a favorable deal.

However, a tricky point is that Trump must always appear to win. This might work out because China takes a long view of things and has strategic patience.

Here are six takeaways and three don'ts for China to take advantage of the current situation and end the trade war.

1. Trump blurs the line between facts and what sounds good on television. This explains why he recruits senior officials from the on-air talent pool of Fox News. It also explains why he asked Ukraine to open an investigation into a fantastical conspiracy theory called "Crowdstrike!" about a Democratic server being hidden in that country. For the Chinese, it also explains his obsession with the trade deficit, which economists have repeatedly said is not at the heart of U.S.-China trade issues.

2. Even if Trump can tell the difference between what his top advisers at the CIA, FBI or State Department tell him and what he reads on right-wing conspiracy sites, he has decided Republican voters can't. In addition, Trump turns out to have been correct in his assumption that federal government employees hate him, and are out to undermine him. Even his former cabinet members criticize him. One of his White House employee has written an entire book anonymously criticizing him in the most scathing terms. Another has told the media that some of Trump's most key advisers told her they subvert the president's orders for the good of the country.

3. Trump is obsessed with chasing down fringe conspiracies, as opposed to gathering facts, weighing them, deciding a desired outcome, and working toward it. The president famously does not read the briefing books supplied to him by his intelligence agencies, and makes key decisions without contacting the relevant department heads or advisory bodies. This is what recently happened in Syria.

4. Waiting out Trump's term may not be an effective strategy. On the one hand, impeachment appears to be a certainty, and he has alienated a large share of Congress with erratic actions like the pullout from Syria. On the other hand, he has 90 percent support of Republican voters, and the Senate will almost certainly not remove him from office. Although Trump is behind in national polls, he is very competitive in the states that he needs to win the electoral college, and thus the next election.

5. Negotiating with Trump never results in significant concessions, or even a deal. This has been demonstrated with the DPRK, the Palestinians, the Europeans, the British and the Iranians, who all walked away from talks empty-handed. Trump did renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, but analysts call it the old deal with a new name. Even so, it has not yet passed Congress.

6. Trump always seems to take policy positions that line up with Russia's foreign policy goals. This is demonstrated by his recent pullout in Syria, his support of Brexit, his antagonism toward the EU and Ukraine, and his general weakening of western alliances and fruitless squandering of global goodwill.

This suggests three things the Chinese should avoid.

- Don't expect skilled negotiators and informed civil servants to find common ground and work out compromises where both sides win. The negotiating teams don't matter nearly as much as the optics of a deal.

- Don't run op-eds or try to influence writers at mainstream papers like the Washington Post, the New York Times, or even increasingly the Wall Street Journal. Trump and his voters dismiss this as the mainstream media (MSM) and ignore these outlets.

- Don't trust the impeachment process to remove the president. It may, but Republican senators have shown no signs of integrity or scruples since Trump was elected, with the exception of a timid handful. The senators response to the investigation has smoothly transitioned from "second-hand information" to "no quid pro quo" to "impeachment over this?" to "unfair process."

Even if Trump is impeached, there is no guarantee his successors, Republican or Democrat, will be more favorably inclined toward China. Politicians of both parties seem to have determined that "being tough on China" and blaming it for U.S. domestic economic problems appeal to voters.

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