When international relations get rough, China is not known for mincing words. The Sino-Soviet split of 1956, for example, was accompanied by the observation from Chairman Mao Zedong that “not all Soviet farts smell sweet”.

Decades later, in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping accused Washington of being deeply involved with “counter-revolutionary rebellion” — a grave crime in Beijing’s eyes. And when Nato forces bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, the authorities allowed thousands of protesters screaming abuse at “American imperialists” to hurl rocks through the US embassy’s windows. By comparison, this month’s reaction from Beijing to an intensifying, US-led trade war has been rather restrained. It has imposed a round of tit-for-tat tariffs and pledged more if Washington escalates, but this response has been reactive and consistent with warnings made before the US slapped duties on Chinese exports. Beijing has also refrained from whipping up nationalistic sentiment to turn Chinese consumers against US brands.

Verbally, the regime has eschewed the earthy aphorisms so esteemed by Mao. At times last week, the People’s Daily, mouthpiece of the Communist party, was almost poetic: “The US trade bullying is like a crazed creeper that keeps wildly growing and will step by step drag the global economy into the mire of decline,” said an editorial. The foreign ministry’s statement called the US tariffs “totally unacceptable”, pledging that China would oppose protectionism and maintain the multilateral trading system. So, the question is: why is China so uncharacteristically calm? The answers appear to stem both from trade war tactics and deep-seated domestic vulnerabilities, according to analysts. They say the leadership has an eye on US politics: James McGregor of the international advisory group APCO Worldwide says the Chinese are hoping for a backlash against President Donald Trump’s policies — and have done their best to fuel it by targeting farmers and Trump voters.