BRIDGEWATER, N.J. • After 18 months of treating North Korea as the top national security threat, President Donald Trump has increasingly turned his attention to China, taking a more confrontational approach that experts said shows a risky shift in U.S. policy.

From an escalating trade war to a new defense budget that counters Chinese maritime expansion, the Trump administration has taken aim at the East Asian power in a contest of wills that has led to a growing consensus in Beijing that the United States is seeking to contain China’s rise.

Trump’s rhetoric has grown sharper since last year, when he attempted to strike a rapport with his “good friend” President Xi Jinping. Last week, Trump cited the Chinese military as the rationale for creating a new “Space Force” at the Pentagon, and in a tweet on Saturday he injected China into the specter of foreign influence of U.S. elections.

“All of the fools that are so focused on looking only at Russia should start also looking in another direction, China,” the president wrote, without offering evidence of any Chinese conspiracy.

Analysts said the rise in hostility suggests that Trump and his advisers have come to view the communist nation as a malign power and direct competitor and adversary whose expanding influence must be blunted through more extreme countermeasures. To a degree, it is a view shared more widely among Washington foreign policy analysts as Xi has consolidated power and pursued an aggressive agenda of economic growth and territorial expansion.

But analysts said the Trump administration has yet to articulate a clear strategy to deal with China even it signals a sharp departure from the approach of previous administrations. President Obama sought to cooperate with Beijing on major global initiatives, such as the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal, as a way to manage China’s growth and encourage it to act more responsibly in the international system.

Trump has pulled the U.S. out of both of those pacts.

“I do not see very many issues this administration is trying to work with China on,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The effort to come up with new things where our interests converge has been abandoned. I think this administration is in agreement that China is a competitor.”

Trump’s preoccupation with China was on display at a Cabinet meeting Thursday. During the discussion, the president accused China of easing economic pressure on North Korea and of flooding opioids into the U.S.

Economic analysts have criticized Trump for sparking a trade war with China by slapping tariffs on steel and aluminum in the spring. In the meeting, the president appeared eager to prove he was right to impose tariffs and to paint Beijing as the loser, pointedly asking his top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, to update him on China’s economic growth.

“I will just say, right now, their economy looks terrible,” Kudlow replied.

Trump had talked tough on China throughout his campaign but pulled back after taking office and inviting Xi to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in spring 2017. Trump declined to follow through on threats to label China a “currency manipulator” as he sought to enlist Beijing’s help in his international pressure campaign on North Korea.

But Trump has soured on Beijing as his bid to force leader Kim Jong Un to live up to summit commitments has faltered. As Trump’s relationship with Kim has appeared to enter an uneasy detente, analysts suggested the president sees China as a convenient political foil to juice his political base.