Xi jinping

Know this: It doesn’t matter what happens during what can only be described as ‘dinner diplomacy’ between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping at the G20 — good, bad or breakthrough. That’s because the course of US-China relations — a complex relationship that blends cooperation, competition and geopolitical slugfest — is set in stone. The reasons are obvious. From tensions all around China’s near seas, to the final status of Taiwan, to the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars in trade to an arms race in Asia that will soon feature sci-fi like hypersonic weapons the future is frighteningly clear.

What started out as one of those trade wars that Donald Trump believes are ‘easy to win’ has turned into a far broader confrontation between the US and China which is set to expand and deepen further. In his no-nonsense manner, the President has brought the era of ‘constructive engagement’ between the world’s two largest economies to a shuddering halt. Gone are the days when successive administrations thought economic growth would make the Chinese and their leaders ‘more like us’. Instead, the last major country ruled by a Communist Party is identified as a strategic competitor whose further economic political and military expansion has to be checked in America’s national interest.