The questions surrounding Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia are lurid and compelling. But they are distracting from a more important and more dangerous story: the growing signs that the Trump administration is heading for a clash with China — one that could even lead to military conflict.
The latest indication came last week at the confirmation hearings of Rex Tillerson, who is Mr Trump’s nominee to be US secretary of state. Mr Tillerson signalled a significant hardening in the US attitude to the artificial islands that Beijing has been building in the South China Sea. He likened the island-building programme to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and said that the Trump administration intended to send a clear signal to Beijing that “your access to those islands is not going to be allowed”.
That sounded like an American threat to blockade the islands, on which China has been building military installations. China would almost certainly attempt to break such a blockade, by sea or air. The stage would be set for a modern version of the Cuban missile crisis. The Chinese state-sanctioned media reacted ferociously to Mr Tillerson’s statement. The Global Times, a nationalist paper, warned of “a large-scale war”, while China Daily spoke of a “devastating confrontation between China and the US”.