You don’t need to be Nostradamus to foresee the outcome depicted in Spooners cartoon.
Xi is messing with the heads of the West playing three dimensional chess while they play checkers and is simply not going to play their game and commit to anything, if at all, until a time, place and under rules of his choosing.
The elected drones of the western democracies are either total amateurs and too dumb to see they’re being played or are ceding the game.
Meanwhile, Xi who knows and understands a Jonestown, Kool Aid suicide pact when he sees one, has adopted Napoleon’s advice of “never interrupting your enemy (s) while he’s making a mistake”.
And what a mistake it is.