Sometimes, faced with a big, intractable problem, we humans spend all our energy on avoiding it. A report deadline, an ailing relationship or an existential challenge to capitalism and global trade – such challenges, approaching like steamrollers from afar, all seem to push us to remarkable new heights of creative procrastination.

The steamroller, in this case, is China. And the governments and institutions picking up pennies before it are the US, Britain and, to a lesser extent, the EU. Donald Trump has just started a major trade dispute with the US’s closest allies. Britain is embroiled in arcane arguments about customs procedures. And the EU, though it is genuinely trying to have a strategic trade policy, is preoccupied with the ongoing failings of its single currency and migration system, while blowing up its security alliance with the UK for good measure. All the while, China’s dominance of world trade grows.

The underlying problem is that the West was wrong about China. Or at least, if we were right, it’s not evident yet. Drawing on our Cold War victory, the view was that China’s democratisation or collapse was only a matter of time. Once a substantial middle class emerged, the theory went, they would demand political rights. Instead, China’s enrichment and enormous technological advances have only tightened the grip of the Communist Party. A new model – a type of authoritarian, mercantilist capitalism – has emerged and it is now the biggest threat faced by the Western conception of freedom.