The World Trade Organization has proved inadequate in settling disputes, and President Biden’s industrial policies for semiconductors, electric vehicles and batteries, and green energy pose a direct challenge. Despite having accomplished leadership or at least parity in manufacturing process technologies, supercomputers, artificial intelligence, solar panels, EVs and batteries, China is still scaling up industrial espionage and weaponizing its patent courts to directly appropriate the technology of Western companies. The United States ? together with the Netherlands and Japan ? is severely curtailing exports to China of machinery used to make leading-edge semiconductors, and the United States is seeking to orchestrate other export sanctions. The Biden administration is tightening limits on U.S. investment in China. In sum, China and the United States are withdrawing into a technological competition that is both self-justifying and destabilizing. In varying measures across industries, two separate research and development and supply chains will emerge for computer hardware, critical components and software, artificial intelligence, green industries and critical raw materials. And those will find expression in the Chinese and U.S. conventional arms competition. The United States is handicapped in several dimensions. By early in the next decade, China will have a larger economy as measured by gross domestic product and is capable of increasing its military spending 7% each year against 1% domestic inflation. The U.S. military budget is not keeping pace with inflation. But the emerging stalemate of the Ukrainian conflict drains U.S. resources that could be used to build American forces more rapidly in Asia.

North Korea could do enormous damage to Seoul with conventional missiles. Seoul is an extraordinarily modern city of nearly 10 million people and is only 31 miles south of the Demilitarized Zone. The human casualties would be devastating. The North Korean missile buildup requires an extraordinary program of developing missile defenses. The country that has the best record of defeating missile attacks is Israel. According to Claire Berlinski at the Cosmopolitan Globalist, 469 missiles were recently fired from Gaza, targeting Israeli towns and cities. The combination of the Arrow short-range defense system, the new David’s Sling medium-range defensive system (co-developed by Rafael Defense Systems and Raytheon), and the Iron Dome computerized control system ― which sorts incoming missiles based on the danger they represent ― has enabled Israel to defeat an amazing number of missile attacks and saved an enormous number of lives. North Korea’s missile systems are faster, bigger and more dangerous than the missiles being fired at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It will require a joint American-South Korean-Japanese development program to create an anti-missile umbrella over South Korea and Japan (North Korea threatens both). This should be a high priority for the Pentagon. The joint system’s development will yield defensive dividends all around the world as countries such as Iran and others also develop missile capabilities. Eliminating cybercrime and developing an effective missile defense system will ensure peace on the Korean Peninsula and contain the North Korean threat. South Korea deserve the best possible defense.

As you might expect, South Korea pays extremely careful attention to Kim Jong Un and the North Korean dictatorship. Their common understanding of the Korean language and culture makes them the preeminent analysts of Pyongyang. Based on their briefings, two large but vital projects became obvious. First, there is an enormous cyber theft hole in the sanctions levied against North Korea. This is providing an astonishing amount of money to the Kim dictatorship to finance its missile and nuclear weapons programs. Second, the recent North Korean missile firings have put renewed emphasis on analyzing the country’s non-nuclear ballistic threat to the Republic of Korea. We were told North Korea is earning an estimated $1.2 billion a year through cybercrime. This is an enormous funding source for Mr. Kim’s military research and development program. There should be an all-out effort by the combined U.S., South Korean and Japanese intelligence services to lock down North Korea’s ability to steal on the internet. If Mr. Kim can count on more than $1 billion a year in theft, the effect of other sanctions is dramatically weakened. Closing this loophole is vital to slowing down the North Korean military program. The scale of the North Korean missile program is growing and involves conventional as well as nuclear weapons. As Time magazine reported on April 12, North Korea completed a record 68 missile tests in 2022, “and there are no signs that the country plans to let up.” The magazine reported that in early April, North Korea shot an intercontinental ballistic missile toward the East Sea, which separates the Korean Peninsula from Japan. It was the 12th missile test this year.

Decades before the Visigoths invaded Rome, that once-impregnable republic had fallen into decadence. Virtue was no longer taught and people were pacified with “bread and circuses.” The Colosseum served up gladiators, chariot races and the crowd-pleasing spectacle of Christians being thrown to the lions. I thought about all this when contemplating current signs of civility slipping away in America. Some are obvious, such as massive public debt, the Free Stuff Army, Earth worship and ubiquitous obscenity. Other signs are a corrupt government and media that lie every day and wink while doing it. To 21st-century eyes, vintage photos at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, evince culture shock. Taken less than 100 years ago, they show men and boys in suits, ties and hats. If a fan yelled a curse word in front of a woman or child, he would have been ejected. Good manners were expected at public events, and the two sexes were a given. In his new book, “War on Virtue,” Bill Donohue exposes how ruling elites are undermining morality deliberately to create a dumbed-down citizenry and an all-powerful state. Mr. Donohue notes that highly successful American subgroups such as Jews, Asians outperform others by inculcating three virtues: self-discipline, personal responsibility and perseverance. In most cases, religious faith plays a crucial role, along with strong families. The solution to our moral crisis, Mr. Donohue argues, is a “re-norming” of America, most probably on the heels of a religious revival.

China offers its autocratic market-socialism as an alternative to democracy and has no more place in the WTO than Russia or North Korea, which thankfully is not a member. Especially in semiconductors and electric vehicles, the United States and EU are fashioning counter initiatives to Chinese industrial policy-aggression, but this hardly means the end of globalization. President Barack Obama championed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to foster trade among like-minded nations, but Mr. Trump?and now President Joe Biden, want no part in it. Unfortunately, Mr. Biden’s policies are hostage to progressive intellectuals and organized labor who see free-markets and free trade as the devil’s workshop. They fashion those as harmful to the interests of minorities, women and whatever other oppressed groups the executive class of the progressive left can dupe to secure political leverage. Mr. Biden initiated an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which permits countries to individually op into arrangements on trade, supply chains, the green transition and anti-corruption. U.S. offers little in the way of additional market access. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen touts friend shoring among likeminded nations to secure supply chains against disruption but again, offers few carrots to inspire cooperation. China has created its own Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. It has applied to join the TPP though it would unlikely accomplish membership if the United States rejoined. America has a choice-it can lead globalization by reembracing free trade through the TPP, or leave the door open for China and its antidemocratic values.

In the early 1950s, Germany and Japan were only admitted after democracy and market economies were reestablished. Western governments had issues with the Japanese industrial policies until its breakneck growth hit the wall in the 1990s, but it was never perceived as a threat to the western democratic order. In contrast, Russia and China were admitted into the WTO after the Cold War under the false premise that trade would help establish democracy, and these rogue states have exploited the bounty to attack democracy. Moscow found vast markets for oil, natural gas, nonferrous metals and agricultural products. Russian President Vladimir Putin jailed dissenters, enriched oligarchs and invested in a large army and military technology and cyber tools to undermine western elections, and subverted U.S. efforts to stabilize the Middle East. Former iron curtain states of Eastern Europe enjoying political and economic freedom and prospering within the EU pose a threat by example to Putin’s repressive kleptocracy. His response is to oppose further expansion of the EU and NATO and invade Georgia, the Crimea and now Ukraine. China has exploited the letter and spirit of WTO rules with huge state subsidies, technology theft and opaque market-access barriers and the deft subversion of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. It aspires to global dominance in semiconductors, 5G wireless, electric vehicles and artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, Beijing underinvests in public health and rural development, squanders wealth with an internal security system and to persecute Muslims in Xinjiang. It is building the world’s largest Navy to intimidate neighbors in the Western Pacific, project power globally and take Taiwan by force.

Skeptics are criticizing western sanctions on Russia and COVID-19-inspired hardening of supply chains, as nails in the coffin of globalization, but don’t count on it. The only question is who leads. Connecting civilizations through commerce and finance is an ancient and unyielding process. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and World Trade Organization (WTO) haven’t evolved effectively with big power competition and they will eventually be replaced by an Asian-centered order. After World War II, the IMF was established to maintain fixed exchange rates to enable commerce and short-circuit a repeat of the competitive currency devaluations of the 1930s. Since the advent of market-determined exchange rates, it has proven useless to resolve the complaints about governments suppressing currency values to gain competitive advantages. China’s Belt and Road and European and American responses are weaponizing development finance, and the World Bank can do little about it. President Donald Trump’s bilateralism with China was hardly novel. President Bill Clinton extracted concessions from Japan with 100% tariffs on luxury sedans, and complementary regional deals parallel the entire history of the WTO. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was created to reduce tariffs to encourage market-driven trade and international democratic order. As tariffs came down, it took on product standards, subsidies, the protection of intellectual property and other issues. Rechristened the WTO in 1995, it formalized a dispute settlement process that had evolved ad hoc.

Our country is in a cultural crisis, and the rest of the world is soon to follow. Not because the world is changing, but because the left has been playing the long game and playing it well. They’ve spent years’ worth of time and our own tax dollars to promote their radical agenda on the international stage through organizations such as the United Nations, Organization of American States, UNICEF, WHO and more. As Americans, and conservatives especially, we tend to not pay too much attention to the work that the United Nations or other international bodies are doing. We assume that these organizations are caring for those in need, providing health care, education and food to people worldwide, but this is only partly true. We forget that these organizations operate as a political forum through which public policy is then created. It is precisely because they are political forums that progressive groups strategically have been advocating for their agenda within them for many years. These progressive groups recognize the reach and impact their agenda can have on many nations at once. UNICEF, a United Nations’ agency whose mission is to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, in its most recent report, stated, “There is no consensus on the degree to which pornography is harmful to children.” The World Health Organization (WHO) published its standards for sexuality education in Europe. As part of its standards, it recommended giving information to babies from 0-5 years old on the “enjoyment and pleasure when touching one’s body, early childhood masturbation.” If we surrender the culture battle globally, it is only a matter of time until it is surrendered here in America.

Recycling is another problem that must be addressed globally. American plastic is not flowing into the oceans, but it is piling up in landfills when it could be flowing through recycling centers. The U.S. has a dismal 9% recycling rate for all plastic. One of our problems is a very confusing recycling system that has little logic. All plastics feature a recycling logo with a number 1 through 7. But those numbers have little to do with recyclability. Most recycling centers only keep plastics numbered 1, 2, and, increasingly, 5. But there is reason to be optimistic. Innovation continues. Developments in chemical recycling make it a possibility that all plastics will be recycled into high-grade plastic. And researchers are finding fascinating uses for recycled plastic, including in road pavement. Blinken noted that the U.S. is already “investing millions of dollars of research in national labs, universities, and industry to make leaps in areas such as developing new plastics that are recyclable by design.” For years, anti-plastic activists have wasted time pursuing worthless initiatives. They’ve spent more time focused on straw bans than calling out China for dumping plastic straight into the ocean. Some treat all single-use plastics as though they have no value, ignoring that water bottles are essential during natural disasters, syringes and gloves are needed during pandemics, and hygiene products like diapers and tampons keep people healthy. Plastic pollution is a global problem; it needs a global solution. Prioritizing waste management and improved recycling is that solution.

The noise surrounding plastic pollution has been driven by wacky activists who can always be counted on to have radical ideas for addressing any problem. But Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s recent announcement that the U.S. is planning to endorse a UN treaty on plastic pollution shows that sensible policy solutions may be taking center stage. There is reason to believe that the planet is heading toward a common-sense approach to reduce plastic pollution without symbolic policies such as bans on plastic straws. The UN Environmental Assembly is poised to address plastic pollution by targeting two main problems: Inadequate waste management systems in developing countries and poor recycling rates worldwide. Reducing pollution in the developing world will be key. The ocean is the epicenter of the plastic pollution debate, but it is swirling in misinformation. A viral video of a turtle with a straw in its nose left many thinking straws from American drinks were the most significant problem the ocean faced. But in reality, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a Texas-sized mass of trash floating near Hawaii, consists mostly of abandoned fishing gear, according to National Geographic. The U.S. does a good job with waste, according to researchers. Only roughly one percent of the mismanaged trash in the ocean comes from the United States. Almost all plastic in the ocean can be traced back to 10 rivers in Africa and Asia. If keeping plastic out of the ocean is the goal, improving waste management in developing countries has to be part of the solution.