Completely agree with the last paragraph.

Sorry, didn't fully follow your meaning in the first paragraph?

On the second paragraph, again completely agree, "pivot to Asia" under Obama meant, as far as I could tell... Obama saying the words "pivot to Asia" a lot. Don't blame Obama for not having a tougher China policy since the USA business community didn't turn on Xi until 2015 so it wouldn't have been possible anyway (he would've been branded an anti-business/anti-free trade/anti-American radical left socialist hoax liberal agenda by the Repubs had he tried before 2015), but the rhetoric/action gap was indeed huge.