The spectre of a rising China has returned to haunt Washington. This is the principal lesson I have drawn from a week just spent in the US. The attention of US policymakers has turned once again towards China. Relations between the world’s incumbent superpower and Asia’s rising giant are, indeed, of great importance. But the correct conclusions will not be drawn from this debate if Washington insists that the onus of change is on China alone. The US, too, must reconsider its role in the world.

I learned at first hand about the sensitivity of Washington’s “China question” from participation in a conference marking the launch of the Brookings Institution’s imaginative new China Initiative. A laudable aim of this initiative is to combat the hostility to China now surfacing in Washington.