Last month, Robert Zoellick, former president of the World Bank and US trade representative, addressed a group of top US executives with business in China with a warning and a challenge. At Washington’s Ritz-Carlton hotel, with Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the US, in the audience, Mr Zoellick asked if the gathering was “ready” for a slide into US-China conflict.

“The 20th century painted a shocking picture of industrial-age destruction; do not assume that the cyber era of the 21st century is immune to crack-ups or catastrophes of equal or even greater scale,” Mr Zoellick said. “You need to decide whether you think the United States can still co-operate with China to mutual benefit while managing differences, and if so, how.”

His words captured the fears — particularly within parts of Washington’s economic and foreign policy establishment — that US President Donald Trump’s trade war against Beijing has paved the way for an irreversible “decoupling” of the world’s two largest economies.