For 35 minutes on Monday, when Mr Blinken became the top-ranking US diplomat to meet Mr Xi since 2018, a collective sigh of relief was likely heaved through that tactical stretch of US allies in the Pacific – from Japan and South Korea in the north, through the Philippines, all the way to Australia in the south. Southeast Asian economies sitting on crucial global supply routes, and tiny Pacific island nations, pulled between Chinese and American overtures, would have been just as reassured.