China issues chilling warning to other countries as Trump tariff war escalates

China has issued a chilling warning for the world amid its trade war standoff with Donald Trump.

The US president and China's president, Xi Jinping, have been in an aggressive game of tariff tennis since April 2 when Trump inflicted a series of reciprocal tariffs on its trading partners across the world.

Before the big announcement, 20 percent tariffs had already been applied on goods from China, which was then hiked by 34 percent (to a combined total of 54 percent) on so-called 'Liberation Day.'

Unsurprisingly, China didn't react so well to the news and as well as filing a lawsuit at the World Trade Organization, they announced retaliatory measures which included 15 percent tariffs on US farm products, 10 percent on crude oil and agricultural machinery, and 34 percent on all US goods.

Days later, Trump snapped back with a 84 percent levy, rising the total of Chinese imports to 104 percent.

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have been butting heads over tariffs for weeks (Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

China matched the threat, hiking its retaliatory tariff to 84 percent on US goods.

This to-and-froing has been going on ever since, with Trump raising the tariff on China to 145 percent, and then to 245 percent, while pausing the tariff plans for all other countries for 90 days as China raised tariffs on US goods to 125 percent and reduced exports of rare earth minerals.

Now, it appears the rest of the world could soon be dragged into the conflict between the world powerhouses as China has outlined its next move: threatening other countries that make trade deals with the US.

China says 'resolute and reciprocal' countermeasures will be applied to other countries that strike a deal with Trump, with close eyes on Taiwan, Japan and South Korea that have just started negotiating with Washington.

"China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests," the Chinese commerce ministry said on Monday (April 21) when discussing Trump's plan to isolate Beijing.

Trump raised the tariff on China to a staggering 245 percent (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

"Appeasement will not bring peace, and compromise will not be respected … To seek one’s own temporary selfish interests at the expense of others’ interests is to seek the skin of a tiger, which will ultimately fail on both ends and harm others," they added.

China also stated: "Where the strong prey on the weak, all countries will become victims."

The threat comes as Trump said the US was in talks with China, hinting that the two world's largest economies could agree to a 'very good deal' yet.

However, that's up for debate since an article in the state-run newspaper, ChinaDaily.com, slammed the US for its greed and for 'playing the victim'.

The article stated that the US is 'not getting ripped off by anybody' but has the real 'problem' of 'living beyond its means.'

The pair don't seem to be coming to an agreement over their trade talks anytime soon (Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

It continued: "It consumes more than it produces. It has outsourced its manufacturing and borrowed money in order to have a higher standard of living than it's entitled to based on its productivity.

"Rather than being 'cheated', the US has been taking a free ride on the globalization train. The US should stop whining about itself being a victim in global trade and put an end to its capricious and destructive behavior.

"Instead, it should commit itself to working with its trading partners to establish a fair, free and WTO-centered multilateral trading system that is in line with the times."

Yikes..