In an era of polarised US politics, both Democrats and Republicans agree on one issue: confronting China. FT Washington bureau chief Demetri Sevastopulo examines how US politics turned hawkish on China in the fourth part of our New Cold War series ft.com/content/75ce18…
Relations weren’t always strained: right before he became China’s leader in 2012, Xi Jinping visited the US on a week-long charm tour. His host: then vice-president Joe Biden, who has now ramped up his anti-China rhetoric ft.com/content/75ce18… 
But ‘American elite and popular opinion has fundamentally changed . . . from balancing co-operation and competition’ to confrontation, says former Barack Obama adviser Evan Medeiros ft.com/content/75ce18…
Since the Nixon administration normalised ties with Beijing four decades ago, the US has tried to mould China into a ‘responsible stakeholder’ in the international system
ft.com/content/75ce18…
ft.com/content/75ce18…
Barack Obama broadly retained that approach. But during his presidency, many US policymakers, academics and companies became pessimistic that China would pursue real political or economic reform ft.com/content/75ce18…
The list of US grievances is now long and wide-ranging: trade, cyber espionage, militarisation of the South China Sea and repression of human rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong ft.com/content/75ce18…
Would a Biden administration keep Donald Trump’s hostile turn towards China? On issues such as climate change, it might be more open to co-operation. But whoever wins November’s election will inherit a radically different, more contentious relationship ft.com/content/75ce18…
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