Am puzzled about the perpetuation of the outdated assumption that US-PRC relations are determined, or even co-determined, by the possessor of the White House. If that were true, the trajectory of US-PRC relations--from hopeful cooperation to containment- should be very different from the trajectory of PRC-India relations, PRC-Japan relations, PRC-Australian relations, PRC-Canadian relations, PRC Swedish relations ....But the opposite is true. The graphs are exactly same but for some leads and lags. Under Hu Jintao, the Party leadership over-estimated the significance of the 2008/9 financial crisis & started acting up. XJP, a Faustian character, turned that into a triumphalist drive that generates collisions with all who resist his imperial radiance. US Presidents had little to do with it,even when not thoroughly mislead by advisors who declared that China was "shapeable" like the PRC's favored UN members, those that obediently vote this way or that in exchange for modest payments