All indications suggest that this trend will not, however, curb his habit of promising that he would declare China a currency manipulator on his first day in office - knowing full well that it would spark a trade war.

Romney's longstanding efforts to paint himself as someone willing to "stand up to China" exemplifies an alarming trend of China-bashing in US politics.

Rick Santorum has echoed Romney, declaring, the US has a moral obligation to defeat China's "godless socialism".

Such statements are primarily targeted at shoring up political support and secondarily at painting Obama as being soft on China. We should not take them as an accurate indication of future policy. And despite this overriding political calculus, these remarks are on to something: Beijing's currency manipulation gives China an advantage in global trade, and its abuse of intellectual property rights ought to be condemned.

Furthermore, the frustration expressed over China's rise occurs in the background of a transition towards an international system less dominated by Washington's will.

It is understandable that US politicians of all stripes vie to be seen as the one most capable of clipping the wings of their country's pre-eminent challenger. Yet such grandstanding must not be confused with long-term strategic thinking.

In fact, it is symptomatic of a larger problem in US political culture: a confrontational approach towards rising powers and the desire, expressed by both Obama and the Republican candidates, to keep the US stronger than all the rest. This displays an ignorance of the US's own rise to global power that could harm its future prosperity.

The US's future place in the world depends upon its leaders accepting that being first among equals is not a sign of decline but rather a natural reorientation of global power shaped by a long historical process. The US president must fashion a grand strategy grounded in an appreciation of US history and focused on building diplomatic, economic and military relationships with emerging countries in Asia.

The shortsightedness of the recent China-bashing exhibited in both the Republican primary debates and Obama's State of the Union address exemplifies Washington's current lack of grand strategy and historical awareness.

The US was the only major industrial power to survive World War II unscathed. In 1945, Western Europe and Japan lay in rubble. India was destined to celebrate independence in 1947 with a brutal partition and war. In 1949, China was reunified by the communists, but its mid-century experience of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward proved to be a great leap nowhere, and it was not until Deng Xiaoping and Manmohan Singh initiated liberal reforms in the late 1970s and 90s respectively that China and India began growing significantly.

Other currently rising powers, such as Brazil, were also non-factors for much of the century. The increasing economic strength of the BRIC countries and other developing nations, then, is not only a recent phenomenon, it is also a natural one. India and China will continue to gain economic, military and political influence, gradually reorienting the global centre of power that has been disproportionately skewed towards the West for five centuries.

The decline in the US's percentage of world manufacturing output from 35 per cent in 1945 to 20 per cent now must be seen in this context, not simply as the result of Chinese machinations.

US politicians and the general public must realise that the US's position of global dominance, both alongside the Soviet Union during the Cold War and as the sole superpower between 1991 and 2008, was partly the legacy of the world wars, decolonisation and socialist and protectionist economic policies throughout the rest of the world.

Rather than issuing empty rhetorical threats, the US must engage with China diplomatically, including in its private sector, much of which desires stronger legislation to protect intellectual property rights, as US ambassador to China Gary Locke recently remarked.

Economically, US politicians and entrepreneurs must see emerging markets as providing opportunities for export, not stealing jobs that, however sadly, are not going to return. It can do this by following the German example of emphasising hi-tech exports and gearing educational institutions towards imparting these skills.

In education, generally, funding must be increased for teaching the languages, history and cultures of Asia. Militarily, sensible cuts to outdated commitments in Europe must be paired with creating an increased presence in the Pacific.

This approach must be unified under a philosophy of seeing emerging powers as legitimate long-term competitors, not momentary rivals. Dean Acheson once famously quipped following World War II that Britain had "lost an empire, and has not yet found a role". In retrospect, the US has lacked a sense of its role in the world since 1991. Today, the nation must fashion a pragmatic world strategy that increasingly engages with the world's emerging economies, not one that retreats from the international stage, as Ron Paul suggests, or provokes a confrontation with China.

Brant Moscovitch researches global history at Oxford University. Jason Pack is a historian at Cambridge University and is president of Libya-Analysis.com