Barack Obama and Xi Jinping will meet in Beijing at the Apec leaders’ gathering with their careers on very different trajectories and bilateral relations having turned sour.

Hamstrung by the Democratic party’s poor showing in last Tuesday’s midterm elections, Mr Obama is limping into the final two years of his presidency while Mr Xi can look forward to another eight years in office, during which time China is set to overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy.

Mr Obama and Mr Xi will emphasise that a stable bilateral relationship is essential to both countries and will play down the many instances of friction between them. But the strategic divide between the world’s two largest economies – on everything from cyber security to trade policy – is enormous and both leaders are under pressure to be even tougher with each other.