The Business Insider link that you included here didn't work, but I am guessing it is this, right?
https://www.businessinsider.com/trum...project-2018-5
The conflict of interest allegations are disconcerting, and I wouldn't rule it out as one of the reasons that Trump has given it a pass. At the same time, I would also say that ZTE may not be the biggest fish to catch because that honour falls on Huawei, and Trump has literally squeezed Huawei to death.
I seem to recall that ZTE was one of the earlier tech companies that the Trump administration went after. Potentially, I'd say we can view that as a warning shot fired to threaten China into submitting to the US. Now that the history is behind us, we can say that warning shot might have failed, but that's OK too because the Trump gov went after Huawei hard afterwards.
As a major developer for 5G tech, including infrastructure, Huawei was the crown jewel of China's international level company, and its international success plays very much into China's worldwide ambitions. Hunting it down resulted in world-wide consequences and ruined China's plans to gain control and influence at the international level. This was something that happened under Trump.
The BBC article referred to China's economic bounce back after COVID shut down the world economy. That is true -- I'd be stupid to deny that. But what I am going to ask is -- is that economic recovery something that would continue onward? and is the US and RoW doing something to change it?
China's economy bounced back after COVID because they were able to use measures that only an authoritarian government can enact to quickly bring down the the COVID numbers. It was also the result of the international community's failure to spread its manufacturing and supply chains for critical equipment across multiple sources. Until COVID can come under control, I don't think this situation will change. And when it comes to controlling COVID, my views are that both Trump as well as the American public bear the responsibility for being unable to effectively control it.
I would not put the reliance on China manufacturing on Trump -- it is the business sector's decision to create and continually feed that problem. On the other hand, Trump's America First policy has provided incentives for businesses to move back to the US as well as move out of China. From what I can see, Vietnam is a major beneficiary of this policy change, as is India. (I think iPhones were exclusively produced in China before. But now the bulk of the iPhone manufacturing has shifted to Indian. iPhone production in China will only produce units that are meant for Chinese market consumption.) Taiwan is also seeing some strong benefits from this as well, although it isn't only because of US encouraging supply chains to move out of China. The relocation of plants and supply chain are seriously hurting the long term Chinese economy.
Also, US has applied a number of very effective sanctions on China in the semiconductor and financial sectors. The technology export bans are killing large portions of the advanced Chinese tech sector (and not just Huawei) because the sector no longer has access to sophisticated semiconductor components. Chinese phones and made-in-China phones are soon going to become a thing of the past. I'd expect some degree of technology products (computer components, network infrastructure components) to be no longer made in China as well. This, too, will hurt the long term economy for China, and it seems extremely unlikely that China can catch up on their own on this because their manufacturing capabilities for this is at least several generations behind. The latest and most profitable semiconductors are produced in the 3 to 5 nm manufacturing process. I think China even has trouble to produce something in the 24nm process. That is a massive, massive gap, and there is no way for them to overcoming this in the foreseeable future.
US financial sactions on China are also causing quite a scare in the Chinese financial sector. Essentially, because of SWIFT and the use of USD, the US can effectivelly kill off any Chinese financial institution by denying them the use of USD.
These are policies that came into being under Trump, and they are part of Trump's China strategy.
Esp in Chinese business culture, it is quite common to use personal favours to buy some goodwill from your business partner. I'd say the Ivanka tradmarks can be viewed under that light. Or with the US-China relationship gradually turning sour over Trump's term, it could also be a gesture from the Chinese side to attempt buying back some goodwill / thank Trump for sparing ZTE.
The media reported on this. Why has the media not done the same when it came to Hunter Biden's Ukraine and China dealings?
I'm sure I am forgetting a lot of other stuff as well, but technology and financial sanctions are probably the most brutal damages Trump has inflicted on China.