Completely agree. And I'd add one reason for stability in US-Europe relations post-WW2 is that both blocs had reasonably stable and successful economic conglomerate relations and governments didn't step in too much to screw over the other blocs companies (somewhat obviously with like Boeing and Airbus, but on the whole, no). China upset that balance. As Merrill says below though, of course it's the political angle in China that's the problem, up to a certain point once you catch up, if you continue to subsidize products to put foreign competitors out of business, and make political acquisitions etc, of course that will garner some sort of response. The issue is that the Leninist ideological angle in China makes negotiations so difficult because the starting point is communism/the communist party is historically right and you're historically wrong so will you admit that before we negotiate lol? It's a tough nut to crack. Reagan had a good approach, always willing to talk, but he'd throw a stack of political prisoners' paperwork on the table at the start of the meeting. If Gorbachev had stormed out, well, stop acting like a 5 year old.