The stakes could not be higher, and the answer ought to be simple. We should stop treating China with kid gloves—as a spirited economic or diplomatic competitor—and start treating it as the existential challenge to the American republic and the American way of life that it demonstrably is.
In June, federal prosecutors in Michigan charged multiple Chinese nationals with conspiring to smuggle dangerous biological pathogens into the United States for use in American university research laboratories. The case centered on Fusarium graminearum, a fungus widely classified as a "potential agroterrorism weapon" because of its ability to ravage crops and cause serious harm to humans and livestock. Prosecutors alleged that the defendants received funding from the Chinese government and brought the pathogen into the U.S. for ostensible "lab work" at the University of Michigan. As if the University of Michigan needed to use smugglers to acquire research materials.
