When Donald Trump ran for president back in 2016, one of the chief targets of his ire was China and what he considered its unfair trade practices—practices he said were coming at the expense of the American economy. After defeating Hillary Clinton, Trump’s adjutants set about putting his plan for tariffs into place, and executed it.
Eight years later, Trump again is making China the bogeymen of American blue-collar workers, many of whom catapulted him to victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. But this time China is a very different rival. Over a decade, it’s achieved many if not most of its goals for technological development, a ...