On the World Stage, America Is Being Tested
It has not taken long for America’s rivals and enemies to test the new American regime.
In the Obama years, China had suborned the World Health Organization, ignored many of the requirements of the World Trade Organization, manipulated its currency, dumped cheap goods despite various trade agreements, flexed its muscles in purporting to turn shoals into Chinese islands staking out the South China Sea as national rather than international waters, and began saber-rattling in respect of Taiwan.
In focusing on Chinese industrial and scientific espionage, the abuse of the Confucius Institutes and of many Chinese student activities at American universities, and on its abusive trade practices, President Trump on this one issue rallied bipartisan support and gained substantial international agreement, especially from China’s neighbors, led by Japan, India, Australia, Vietnam, and Indonesia.