Last month, though, the Chinese government cut off that access for me and almost all of the other Americans working for The Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, ordering us out of the country as part of the intensifying standoff between the Trump administration and Beijing.

I spent much of my two years in China covering that standoff, and from the great heights at which we journalists often write about such matters — through politicians’ statements and government policies, through trade data and corporate decisions — it could seem as if titanic forces in both nations were drawing them inexorably toward conflict.

But the situation usually looked different when speaking to ordinary people in China. Like people everywhere, they tend to be less dogmatic and more curious about the world than their leaders. Seen through their eyes, the wider costs of the hostility came into focus, as did the degree to which it was driven by anxieties that felt distant to the communities most directly affected by it.

Last year, for instance, I went to the southern city of Zhuhai to visit a plant run by the American manufacturer Flex. The Trump administration was clamping down on one of Flex’s customers, the Chinese tech giant Huawei, and the company was letting workers in Zhuhai go.

In the baking August heat, I met Zhan Yuanxian, 38, who had just turned in his employee ID. He said it was hard to be mad at Flex or the United States for what happened. Over the years, the company’s presence had transformed a once-rough part of the city, bringing in shops, restaurants and housing.