Contrary to first impressions, what's most laughable about Holman W. Jenkins Jr.'s August 12 Wall Street Journal column is not his portrayal of China as a reluctantly protectionist country, most recently restricting its government procurement market and strong-arming foreign investors only because of outrageous provocations from Washington.

No, what's most laughable about "The New Economic Warfare" is its unmistakable belief that ignoring or excusing Chinese protectionism is the world's best hope not only for avoiding 1930s-style disasters, but for ensuring the most efficient possible global allocation of capital and therefore the most robust global growth.

It's as though Jenkins hasn't read his own Wall Street Journal -- or any other economic publication -- for the past twenty years.  During this period, the United States has done nothing but ignore or excuse protectionism in China -- and the rest of the world.  And global investors have poured mind-boggling sums into, first, internet and telecoms systems for which there was no demand, and then into obviously bubble-izing real estate markets.  Some efficiency.

Moreover, how on earth can free markets and their virtues be strengthened by the explosive growth in China's share of the world economy, of global industry, and of global exports, not to mention by greater Chinese control of global assets?  For all its liberalization since 1979, China's economy remains a thoroughly government-dominated economy.  Beijing still calls the shots even in its purported private sector.  And President Obama is called a socialist?

If China is indeed the wave of the world's economic future, then the bureaucrats and politicians Jenkins reviles will be in the driver's seat, not the entrepreneurs.  And paeans like this to capitalism will be exercises in nostalgia, not commentary.

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