Chinese-American author Ken Liu’s novel *The Paper Menagerie* features a scene where a Chinese mother, who struggles with English, folds a tiger out of paper. Creating animal shapes like tigers and wolves from paper is a longstanding Chinese tradition.

In his first term as president, Donald Trump repeatedly backed down in confrontations with China, on everything from currency manipulation to ZTE to the “One China” policy. It reached a point where China’s state-run media, mocking the American ...