When the Biden administration announced a fresh investigation into the origins of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan on Tuesday, the Chinese reaction was swift and furious.

Zhao Lijian, foreign ministry spokesperson, accused the US of “political manipulation” and of “stigmatising” China — the sort of regular spat that has prompted growing comparisons to the cold war.

But just a day earlier, another announcement told a different story about the ties between the world’s two leading powers. Goldman Sachs, an emblem of the globally dominant American finance industry, unveiled a wealth partnership with the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. The deal could allow the Wall Street firm to draw on the savings of hundreds of millions of the bank’s Chinese customers.