When US secretary of state Mike Pompeo last month declared in a speech that China was intent on “hegemony”, it was yet another sign of how much has changed since Donald Trump wrote in a tweet in March about his “respect” for president Xi Jinping.
As the pandemic has devastated the US economy, imperilling his re-election, Mr Trump has ditched his reluctance to taking a harsher stance on Beijing, as he increasingly blames the Chinese government for what he calls the “China virus”.
His decision to make China a bogeyman in the 2020 US presidential race has opened the door for security hawks to push policies to clamp down on threats from Beijing that Mr Trump previously ignored. But some officials privately say that they are also racing to enact tough policies in case Mr Trump ends up losing to Joe Biden in November.