IT IS NO EXAGGERATION to say that international policy towards China has for decades been shaped largely by one power: the US. From Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, a succession of US presidents aided China’s rise, including its integration into international institutions—from the UN Security Council to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

And other countries followed the American lead in outsourcing manufacturing to China and building closer bonds with that communist giant. It is Donald Trump’s presidency that began a fundamental shift in US policy.