The Export-Import Bank already has a troubling history of subsidizing China’s largest financial institutions. Unfortunately, President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Ex-Im Bank, Reta Jo Lewis, appears likely to embrace that past.

For decades, the bipartisan consensus in Washington was that the economic modernization of communist China would, as if by magic, create a demand for and a willingness to adopt democratic reforms. It is long past time to admit that this reasonable-sounding aspiration has failed. The United States needs an Ex-Im Bank nominee who understands that China is a threat, not a partner. Lewis is not that nominee.