Europe’s most significant contribution to the world economy at the moment is serving as a bad example. Much of Western culture and law can trace its origin back to this city of 2,500 years ago. The ancient Athenians learned that democracy is fragile and can lead to bad outcomes ― not that other governing systems have proved to be more successful over the long run. One of the fatal flaws of democracy is the recurring irrationality of the people to vote themselves benefits that they are unwilling to pay for. The idea of getting something for nothing is so powerful that politicians have used the same con everywhere on the planet for thousands of years. The end is always the same. The music stops when the cupboard is empty. Greece is exhibit A at the moment of what happens when a country spends more than it produces without restraint. At some point, the lenders say, “no more ― you must live within your means.” For Greece, this has resulted in an approximately 30 percent drop in real per capita income during the last decade and an unemployment rate of 18 percent. Greece was the first EU country to go into a managed debt default and a reduction in living standards to reflect “pay as you go.” Unfortunately, Greece will not be the last. At some point in the not-too-distant future, both Italy and France are going to face a day of reckoning when they, too, will no longer be able to live on borrowed money. There is no mystery to the European disease: Excessive government spending not justified on a cost-benefit basis, including many “green” projects that have failed; tax rates far above the revenue and welfare maximizing rates that have only undermined the desire to work, save or invest; and regulations that make no economic sense and are so numerous and complex they only serve to undermine the rule of law.

Democratic presidential hopefuls and automakers are betting big on new technologies to rid cars of fossil fuels and field self-driving vehicles. Electric cars predate gas-powered vehicles by 50 years, and were sold commercially through the 1930s. As now, the slow progress of battery technology permitted the internal-combustion engine to outperform in terms of power, capacity, recharge time and cost. Contemporary batteries are a combination of expensive cobalt, lithium, manganese and nickel. To increase capacity, engineers are tinkering with boosting nickel content but among stability challenges, it can get extremely hot and cause fires. Engineers have been grappling with battery problems for more than a century, and this may be the old story of the man walking half way to the wall, over and over but never reaching his goal. Most daily commutes and errands are less than 100 miles, and plug-in hybrids with modest batteries would eliminate gasoline for workdays and most weekends. Automakers already offer a wide range of plug-ins, but the economics work better in sedans than heavy SUVs. If the president in 2021 wants to move carbon out of our energy system, then tougher fuel economy standards would likely make a reasonably spacious, hybrid sedan ubiquitous. However, at a fraction of the cost advanced driver assistance programs will be in nearly all new cars soon. New cars will become much safer very fast ? but drivers are not going away ? and gasoline still will be pumped.

Acorollary to that theory: If trade and commerce could bring prosperity to unfree lands, their rulers would moderate, becoming more eager to improve their nation than to conquer other nations. Based on such thinking, the United States and Europe began expanding commercial relations with China, culminating in China joining the World Trade Organization in 2001. This theory about wealth and liberalization was, I suspect, in large measure responsible for President Obama’s policy toward Tehran. If he gave the theocrats respect and cash, plus a path to sustained prosperity, surely “moderates” would prevail over the “hardliners,” and Iran would become a “normal” nation. While imposing tough sanctions on North Korea ? though not yet “maximum pressure” ? Trump has held out to dictator Kim Jong-un the vision of North Korea as a success story akin to Singapore. I’m dubious that Mr. Kim will be tempted by that carrot unless he’s persuaded that the alternative is a very big stick. Trump deserves credit for recognizing that Chian regards America as its adversary, and is pursuing a neo-imperialist agenda. He’s taken a harder line than any of his predecessors in response to China’s unfair trade practices and its habit, year after year, of stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of intellectual property ? including military defense secrets. I am arguing that speaking truth to powerful tyrants is preferable to shutting up for fear of offending them. Failing that, we will seem indifferent to the suffering and aspirations of unfree peoples. What, at this point, is the strategic rationale for America ? and other free nations ? enriching, empowering and legitimizing adversaries who are also major league oppressors?

For 156 years, the bustling city on the southern coast of China was a British colony. Then, in July 1997, London handed it over to Beijing. The people of Hong Kong had no say; for them, there would be no right to self-determination. The Chinese government did make a promise, however: “one country, two systems.” In other words, Hong Kong was to retain its liberties, its legal system, its free market economy, its way of life, for 50 years. Recently, that agreement has been endangered. A law was proposed to permit Hong Kongers accused of crimes to be extradited to the mainland where the Communist Party controls the courts. In case you didn’t notice: Leaders of what we used to call the Free World have responded anemically to the battle over Hong Kong. I’m afraid they’re following a pattern. In 2009, there were mass demonstrations in Iran directed against Supreme Leader. They chanted: “Obama, are you with us or against us?” The American president declined to answer. The statesmen of Europe said little and did less. Two years later, protests broke out in Syria. They were initially led by opponents of the Assad dynasty who were pro-freedom, not Islamists or jihadists. They, too, received no support from President Obama. The statesmen of Europe again said little and did less. Before long, Tehran, its proxy, Hezbollah, and Russia intervened militarily to prop up dictator Bashar al-Assad. The “international community” has shrugged its collective shoulders. Let me provide a bit of context: After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were those ? political scientist Francis Fukuyama the most outspoken ? who believed that liberal democracy was the destination toward which all nations were evolving.

Instead of lowering taxes, they are committed to raising them - for starters, on “the rich” and corporations. Rather than reducing regulations, they are all for increasing them. Overall, China’s communist government is seeking to reduce government intervention in the private sector, while America’s new left is seeking to increase it - massively. Even for cynics skeptical China will thoroughly follow through on recent legislative promises, the two lefts’ verbal separation is illuminating. If nothing else, China’s communist government is courting business as a valued partner in the nation’s path to prosperity. America’s new left is at least verbally exiling business as an opponent to the nation’s well-being. The irony here is as stark as the two lefts’ differences. China’s Communist Party, facing slowing economic growth - still over twice America’s - feels compelled to aid it by reducing government intervention in the economy. In doing so, they are applying standard capitalist policies, in spite of their governing communist ideology. They are doing so, not just because of prevailing global economic practices, but because of their own historical experience - first, witnessing the terrible price paid for ignoring these policies decades ago, and now having seen the economic miracle they have unleashed. Where Communist China sees the private sector as the means to prosperity, America’s left sees the private sector as its enemy. Where China’s left have allowed historical experience to supersede their communist ideology, America’s left have allowed inexperience to supersede history, in order to advance their ideology. While their proposals remain mercifully untried, they have succeeded in one seemingly impossible task: They have made China’s left look conservative.

Those external ones are currently embodied in its confrontation/negotiation with President Trump. Recently, China’s two major annual political gatherings - the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Consultative Conference - tried to address these internal and external pressures, as well as a slowing economy. Last year’s economy grew 6.6 percent, its slowest rate since 1990. This year’s official target is between 6.5 percent to 6 percent. China’s policy response was to propose a reduction in taxes, regulations and overall government intervention in the private sector. The VAT and other fees will drop, regulations will be relaxed, and government limitations on foreign investment activities will be reduced. Considering China’s past practices - and how far it needs to go on all these fronts - ample room exists for caution. Even with these announced reforms, implementing legislation will determine how far they go. However, both the actions and the language clearly indicate a reduction in overall government intervention in the private sector. Even if less than promised or hoped, the results will almost certainly move China further in this direction. Half a world away, America’s new left is in fact a world removed from such sentiment. The contrast is as stark as the policy gulf between the two “lefts” is wide. Where China’s communist government is sensitive to economic growth slowing to last year’s 6+ percent rate, America’s self-proclaimed socialists believe America’s 2.9 percent economic growth is unsustainable, and seemingly unnecessary. Their policy responses promise to make it self-fulfilling, too.

Comparing China’s old left and America’s new left shows irony. Ironically, they are moving in opposite directions regarding government intervention in their economies. Yet the greater irony is their differing motivations: Based on their history and experience, China’s left is moving to reduce government intervention; while based on their ideology and inexperience, America’s left is demanding increased intervention. Born from revolution 70 years ago, Communist China has internally struggled over greater and lesser centralized control. The former prevailed until Mao’s death in 1976, with disastrous results - in the economy, the Great Leap Forward, and in society, the Cultural Revolution. Not until Deng Xiaoping’s 1977 ascent did the Communist Party begin to relax its grip in an attempt to reach accommodation with its massive impoverished population’s desire for economic development. Breaking from Maoist orthodoxy - itself a more radical form of communism - limited capitalism was permitted. While friction remains between increased private autonomy in the economy and continued political monopoly by the party, the former has continued. As a result, unlike its European precursors, China’s communist state has survived because its economy has comparatively thrived. Thanks to high rates of growth during its developmental stage, China has become the world’s second largest economy, producing wealth unimaginable just a generation ago. The nation now stands at an economic crossroads as it seeks to advance into a more mature level of development. Now in addition to its familiar internal growth demands, it faces external ones from the developed nations it seeks to join.

In public, Mr. Putin sounds like a liberal internationalist. At a conference in 2007, for example, he asserted that the “use of force can only be considered legitimate if the decision is sanctioned by the U.N.” But he neglected to ask the United Nations for permission before taking slices of Georgia in 2008, and seizing the Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Mr. Putin’s East European and Central Asian neighbors respect or fear him - I doubt he cares which. In West Europe, too, we see Mr. Putin’s progress. Germany, the wealthiest European NATO member, one that spends a pittance on collective defense, now seems eager to become dependent on Russia for energy. The German newspaper Bild recently reported that Germany’s ambassador to the United States, Emily Haber, sent letters to Congress opposing “the tightening of the American sanctions policy against Russia,” and asking that the United States end its opposition to Nord Stream 2, a pipeline that is to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany. A congressional source told Bild that members were “shocked” by the ambassador who, it appears, “unambiguously sides with Russia.” Such bipartisan shock has not received nearly as much media attention as the very partisan conflict over Russian meddling in the 2016 elections. The evidence suggests that Mr. Putin’s goal was to “sow chaos” and “undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process.” Mission accomplished. Weakening America or strengthening Russia. It’s unclear whether Mr. Trump understands the master of the Kremlin any better than his predecessors. Let me assist: Vladimir Putin has the morals of a KGB agent, the soul of a commissar and the ambitions of a czar. He plays by no rules other than his own.

Instead, Mr. Putin’s intervention paid off as he anticipated. He now has an air base in Latakia (from which Russian warplanes have attacked Mr. Assad’s opponents), and an expanded naval base at Tartus on the Mediterranean. Latin America is a long way from Red Square but there, too, a Russian ally is in trouble, and Mr. Putin has sprung to his defense. In March, he sent about 100 troops - a “rapid deployment force” - to help shore up Nicolas Maduro, the socialist despot no longer recognized by the United States as Venezuela’s legitimate president. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned: “Russia’s got to leave Venezuela.” We shall see. It’s difficult to imagine anyone describing Mr. Putin as charming, yet he wins friends and influences people - all sorts of people. He sells arms to the United Arab Emirates, and to Qatar, nemesis of the UAE, he has sold a large share of Russia’s state-controlled oil company, PAO Rosneft. He is making common cause with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Islamist president of Turkey, an increasingly unreliable member of NATO. His alliance with Iran’s ruling mullahs has not prevented him from establishing cordial relations with the rulers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, whom he never lectures about human rights and democratic reforms. On the contrary, just after Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Mr. Putin gleefully high-fived Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at a G-20 meeting in Buenos Aires. (The Saudi royal could learn from Mr. Putin how to dispatch enemies with finesse and a modicum of plausible deniability.)

Vladimir Putin wants to make Russia great again. He defines great as powerful, nothing more, nothing less. If you keep that in mind, everything he does makes perfect sense. For example, recently he held a “summit” with North Korea’s dynastic dictator, Kim Jong-un. The meeting produced no news or policy shifts but it allowed the Russian president to demonstrate yet again that whenever a high-stakes game is played, he gets a seat at the table. A report commissioned by four leading human-rights organizations revealed how Mr. Putin, over the past 20 years, “has turned Russia’s legal system into a tool of repression, using it to suppress dissent, undermine political opposition, and detain anyone the Kremlin views as a potential threat,” as veteran activists Irwin Cotler and Katrina Lantos Swett explained in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. It’s often said that America has the world’s strongest military because America has the world’s strongest economy. Russia, however, has a per capita GDP lower than that of Portugal or Poland, and its defense budget has been shrinking. Yet its military is in the global top three. In this and other ways, Mr. Putin plays a weak hand well. Though no communist, he is unburdened by bourgeois sentimentality. You can be sure he has lost no sleep over the death and destruction in Syria, to which he’s made a significant contribution while defending another dynastic dictator, Bashar al-Assad. President Obama, who declined to assist Iranians protesting oppression in 2009 and Syrians protesting oppression in 2011, warned Mr. Putin that, should he send troops into Syria in 2015, he’d end up “stuck in a quagmire.”