BEIJING — “Both ignorant and malicious” was how the official China Daily newspaper recently described comments by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, offering a stinging insight into the current bitter tone of discourse between the countries.

The White House’s move to expand Washington’s dispute with Beijing beyond trade and technology and into accusations of political meddling has sunk relations between the world’s two largest economies to the lowest level since the Cold War.

A major speech by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Oct. 4 was the clearest, highest-level sign that U.S. strategy was turning from engagement to confrontation. Pence accused China of interfering in the midterm elections to undermine President Donald Trump’s tough trade policies against Beijing, warned other countries to be wary of Beijing’s “debt diplomacy” and denounced China’s actions in the South China Sea.

“What the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing across this country,” Pence said at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

Both sides are trading increasingly sharp accusations over human rights and global hegemony, exposing an ideological divide that pits the two on a path of confrontation with no clear resolution in sight.

While a military clash has not been ruled out, American-based analysts envision a continuing push-and-pull for dominance between Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, China’s most repressive leader since Mao Zedong. Xi’s aggressive foreign policy and authoritarian ways have altered views of China across the board.

Beijing’s outrage at Pompeo was prompted by his recent warnings to Latin American countries about the dangers of accepting Chinese infrastructure loans that are a key aspect of Xi’s signature foreign policy project.

“U.S.-China relations have deteriorated to their worst point” since the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in Beijing that were crushed by the Chinese military, said Michael Kovrig, senior adviser for Northeast Asia at the International Crisis Group.