President Donald Trump’s foremost accomplishment during his first term was breaking the decadeslong bipartisan consensus that Beijing’s threats were only slight irritants amid the far greater opportunity offered by China’s economy. That shift endured into the Biden administration.

Today, however, Trump seems determined to reverse course. Trump is increasingly replacing a China policy rooted in hard-headed strength with one of overt appeasement. This is a big problem.

China poses the most significant threat to U.S. national security since that of the Axis powers during World War II. While the Soviet Union had a far greater number of nuclear weapons than China currently possesses, Beijing is growing its nuclear weapons stockpile apace. More importantly, China’s economic leverage allows it to bribe, blackmail, and coerce nations around the world into obedience with its political interests. The Soviet Union was never able to do what China does.

China steals hundreds of billions of dollars in intellectual property from nations and corporations globally every year. It blackmails close American allies and partners from Europe to Africa to Asia to avoid condemning its human rights abuses, its destruction of fishing habitats, its coercive foreign policy, its unrestrained espionage, and its adventurous militarism. All-powerful Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping has declared ownership of the near entirety of the South China and East China Seas. These absurd claims encompass vast energy and fishing reserves and encroach on the exclusive economic........

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