But, Tianjin is only around 100km from Beijing while Shanghai is over 1,000km away. It's a significant concession I suppose. LOL.
I lament that two of the most powerful countries in the world are getting this petty. Don't know whose fault to start with, but it's rather tragicomic come to think about it.
You may not be aware of the historical precedence-- Qing imperial court used to kept foreign envoys in Tianjin while it was strong. Hence it's in a way symbolic. And Biden administration is resorting to mafioso tactics by making troubles for China to make China concede something for nothing. This time, China is in a good position to ignore that and make its displeasure known. Unless US is really serious about settling this by offering something real, I expect this to continue.
Biden is essentially using Hillary Clinton's tactic -- no surprise since his foreign policy cadre are from her tenure as Secretary of State. In the beginning of the Obama administration, there had been considerable good will toward US. Obama and Xi made a deal that Obama was not able to deliver, so Obama sucker punched Xi at Copenhagen climate conference. From this point on, there was no good will -- China expect US to pay for any deal immediately instead of on credit or for good will. Hillary Clinton's response was the pivot -- making trouble for China to force China to concede for nothing. This is actually pretty clever, as when things go south, it's not US that pays the cost, but the local suckers that got roped into this by US. And when things do go south, those suckers will run back toward US for protection anyway -- so no real loss even when China retaliated.
The difference this time is that the usual suspects for suckers are smarter this time not getting roped into this. But there are always new suckers...