The coronavirus pandemic has deepened the rancor, bringing relations between the two to a modern-day nadir. Both governments are forgoing cooperation and trying to outmaneuver each other to shape events in the post-pandemic world order…

Supporters of the U.S.’s harder-edged China policy say it is working, producing a partial trade deal in which Beijing has promised to buy more American goods and services. More broadly, they say, the approach is deterring Beijing by demonstrating strength and resetting relations that previously tilted in China’s favor.

Some officials and many foreign policy experts worry that mutual suspicions are fraying any remaining shared interests.

“The general feeling in China is that the United States does not want China to stand up as a global power,” said Wang Jisi, president of Peking University’s Institute of International and Strategic Studies, in an online forum of U.S. and Chinese experts last month.