Pottinger’s office quickly became known as the place where the puzzle pieces of China’s actions were collected and interpreted. And the pieces were many. When Trump came to office in 2017, satellite photographs were already circulating showing new runways, fighter jets, and missile emplacements on remote Chinese islands in the South China Sea—the place that Xi had promised, during a 2015 visit to the White House, never to militarize. Reports from the Middle East and Southeast Asia detailed new Chinese efforts to build ports that seemed likely to have military uses. Even more concerning were
...more
