When the Japanese began buying trophy properties like Rockefeller Center in the late 1980s, there was an intense reaction.

David Letterman began his show one evening with the announcer saying, “From New York, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi, it’s ‘Late Night with David Letterman.’ ” A New York Times Op-Ed was titled, “An Economic Pearl Harbor?”

Even Donald J. Trump got in on the act: “Bidding on a building in New York is an act of futility, because the Japanese will pay more than it’s worth just to screw us,” he told Playboy in 1990. “They want to own Manhattan.”

A quarter-century later, it is China’s turn.

On Monday, in a head-turning series of deals, a Chinese insurance company that just over a year ago purchased the Waldorf Astoria, bought $6.5 billion of properties from the Blackstone Group and made a $12.8 billion offer to buy Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide.