As US President Donald Trump’s whirlwind tour of Asia concludes tomorrow with his summit meeting with China’s Xi Jinping in Busan, much of Asia — including India — is bracing for what could be a new chapter in the most consequential bilateral relationship of the modern era.

For nearly a century, the US-China dynamic has defined the geopolitics of Asia, shaping the regional balance and compelling countries like India to constantly recalibrate. Each phase in their ties has had ripple effects across the region. India has often found itself struggling to keep pace with these shifts. That challenge could deepen if Trump and Xi seek to reset their fraught relationship.

US-China relations took shape in the 1930s amid imperial Japan’s aggression. Washington backed Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist g

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