Back in 2005, US economist Fred Bergsten coined the term “Group of 2” or “G2”, proposing a stronger partnership between what are now the world’s two largest economies – the United States and China. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis a few years later, economic cooperation between these two countries briefly seemed to attest to the success of efforts at integrating China into a liberal rules-based order. To be sure, the ostensible G2 was not meant to replace the larger, formalised