Since the days of the Nixon administration nearly 50 years ago, American policy has aimed to steer China out of its isolation to prosper in the global market economy. There needn’t be conflict between the established superpower and the emerging giant, the best strategic minds argued. As it grew rich, they reasoned, China could be integrated peacefully into the institutional framework built by the Western powers from the rubble of World War II.



The proposition fit with the “liberal peace” view of foreign relations: that nations engaged in intense economic intercourse would find it too costly to go to war. American businesses that flocked to China to tap its cheap labor and huge consumer market after its entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 enthusiastically agreed with the approach.



That strategy, it appears, is over.

President Trump’s announcement last week that the United States would impose a battery of tariffs against as much as $60 billion worth of Chinese goods while restricting Chinese investments in American technology companies has set policy onto a different, more belligerent path. China is now, in the president’s words, an “economic enemy.”

Interestingly, not all scholars have opposed the change of tone. Many foreign policy experts agree that China is not playing by the rules. American businesses, which typically endorsed forbearance to protect their market access to China, have grown frustrated at its appropriation of their intellectual property.