Mr Trump’s breezy style has long disconcerted China’s leaders. In the spring of 2017 he called Mr Xi so often to ask for help with North Korea that Chinese envoys eventually delivered a discreet message to American contacts. Mr Xi is “not our North Korean desk officer”, they pleaded: let underlings handle most of this.

China’s leader started a week of diplomacy in Southeast Asia to signal China’s commitment to global trade after U.S. President Trump upended the global economy.