With Trump’s US turned in, East Asia must puzzle out by itself how to deal with China

China’s strategic reach is growing, and Beijing disdains to conceal its ambition to win a wider role in governing the global community. With the United States turned inward to its Trump-era problems, East Asia must figure out by itself how best to deal with its giant neighbor.

Neither side has much experience in neighborliness. Dynastic China itself—unified early on and for the most part self-sufficient—seldom had to deal with any neighbor of near-equal gravity. For much of its continuous history of 4,000 years, the Chinese Empire was focused inward—on the threat from the nomadic peoples of Inner Asia’s grasslands.