There is no more pressing national security matter for President-elect Donald Trump than that of how to deal with China.

The China problem our 47th president is inheriting from the Biden administration is grave. Like the two terms of former President Barack Obama’s White House before him, President Joe Biden’s China policy has telegraphed diffidence and weakness against a backdrop of American military decline. Two years into his presidency, Biden blurted out that the United States would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, ending decades of “strategic ambiguity” with Washington’s posture vis-à-vis Taipei and Beijing. Biden then repeated this statement at least three other times, with the White House rowing back his rhetoric on each occasion.