Our China Economic Policy Needs Security-Based Realism

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Byline: Alan Tonelson, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Americans just got an invaluable lesson in the wrong and right ways to meet the often-intertwined economic and military challenges posed by China. Learning it will greatly boost the odds of regaining real national economic health and safeguarding security.

The wrong way of handling China tragically has been the reigning approach under the past four presidents. Its latest expression - the Obama administration's decision that tariffs previously approved to reduce imports of massively subsidized solar panels from China will not cover such products if they contain key non-Chinese components.

This approach has produced far more …