Mr. Kissinger’s approach was sometimes called “triangulation.” But distilled down to its essence, the phrase meant ensuring that China and Russia were not friendlier to each other than each was to the United States. Given that the Soviet Union was much stronger than China at the time, Mr. Kissinger especially courted Beijing.

We forgot Mr. Kissinger’s wisdom during the Obama administration’s coddling of China and the schizophrenic Russian “reset.”

America may be the strongest economic and military power in the world, but it had violated every one of Mr. Kissinger’s principles. Russia and China both agreed that the willpower of the United States was weak, and despite their own existential differences, they found it mutually profitable to collude in reducing American stature.

China is worried. Mr. Trump’s domestic opponents may write him off as a crude buffoon, but Beijing fears that he is a crafty Machiavelli or Sun Tzu, already downsizing Chinese power.

China’s stock market is way down. Its economy is slowing and its currency declining. Average Chinese citizens wonder why, in tough times, their leaders are lavishing foreign aid on African countries and other Asian nations while China is mired in a trade war with the United States.

Russia certainly has no interest in seeing in its neighborhood a nuclear Iran or an unhinged nuclear North Korea ? or having disputes with a Chinese colossus along its 2,600-mile shared border. American appeasement, trade concessions and extraordinary Chinese wealth did not make China a better global citizen. Perhaps stronger U.S. pushback, supported by an array of Asian allies and a conniving Russia, might.