For a country that likes to boast of its 3,000 years of recorded history, China displays a notably crude and unpolished face in matters of foreign relations.
Its behaviour since the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou has been, in turns, boorish, threatening and ill-tempered. Its approach has been to unleash a flood of insults, warnings and demands. The impression it leaves is not that of a mature, confident state handling a difficult situation in an adult manner, but of an angry child throwing a tantrum in public while demanding to have its way.....