I know what you’re thinking: that’s the kind of question losers ask. That I’d know what it meant to win if I’d ever done it. But bear with me. There are reams of text debating who will win (geopolitically; economically; militarily) between the US and China, but relatively little discussing what either party would call a win, and whether it’s the same for both. It probably isn’t. It isn’t the same from one US administration to the next; it isn’t the same depending whom you ask within any one US administration; and, as for China, they’re probably playing a totally different game.

A careful study of the pattern of policy choices in a particular country can tell us what they ‘really’ care about. Formally, it can reveal the structure of their objective function. What does it mean to win? It means maximising the value of that objective function, or exceeding some threshold in its value. Which objectives are must-haves, and which are nice-to-have? How much of objective (a) are they prepared to give up in order to achieve one unit of objective (b)?