The United States and China have embarked on one of the most hair-raising experiments in international history. Both sides are now locked in a steady, escalating, geopolitical competition. And yet both are deeply economically intertwined.

Of late, the Biden administration seems to have recognized the danger in the dynamic and has tried to send some conciliatory signals.

The last time two major world powers tried to manage a relationship of economic interdependence and rising geopolitical rivalry was Britain and Germany in the period from the 1880s to 1914. That experiment ended very badly. Both sides should try to do better this time.