Trump’s sharp turn on China

Xi welcoming Trump outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14. — Kenny Holston/The New York Times

AFTER meeting with China’s top diplomat in Malaysia last summer, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio uttered a line that made few waves at the time but would later help pave the way for an abrupt change.

The United States and China, Rubio said, had an “opportunity here to achieve some strategic stability” and find areas of coo­pe­ration.