Connecting security and economic priorities, the Democrats hope, might also attract the support of Republican hawks such as Marco Rubio, who have taken the same intellectual path, thereby shoring up the centre. This is a worthwhile aim, sharpened by the recent illustration on Capitol Hill of how hard-pressed the rational right is, and what might follow if it fails. It is also fuelled by concerns about the self-defeating politicisation of recent foreign policy— highlighted by the fact that neither of the two previous administrations mustered much bipartisan support for their signature schemes. This is a guarantee of changeable American leadership, off-putting to allies, and guaranteed to fail.

Yet though Mr Biden has in essence accepted the Republicans’ thinking on China, it would be remarkable if many did support him. Foreign-policy realism has been largely replaced on the right by a never-say-die hawkishness, which permits no reasonable compromise, perhaps because it is partly intended to score points against the left. Mr Biden’s Middle East policy, which is likely to hew to Mr Obama’s commitment to containment and withdrawal, will antagonise Republicans especially. But, keen to accelerate Mr Obama’s aborted pivot to Asia, the Democrats will press on. This will probably involve resuscitating the Iran nuclear containment deal Mr Trump abrogated—triggering a new cycle of partisan sparring, as mystifying to America’s allies as it is self-defeating.

Such are the ambitions and intellectual currents of the centre-left team Mr Biden has assembled. His utterances suggest he has moved with them. Yet the question, which not even his long record can answer, is whether he is committed to the hard policy slog, with few easy wins, that heeding his advisers on China could entail. Especially as events crowd in. Mr Biden starts his presidency with great experience and goodwill. But, in such testing times, the 78-year-old’s leadership may be another source of uncertainty.

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