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The cement is hardly dry on a new policy to forge new Asia-Pacific alliances, and already the endeavor is coming across as a collection of incoherent contradictions. Consider:

*We say we want to build closer ties with China, but our two leading presidential candidates are making political hay out of its trade and industrial policies at just the moment Beijing is struggling to maintain economic growth. President Obama has filed two cases against China at the World Trade Organization in the last two months, one of them just last week. They are both intended as vote-getters in the auto-industry states; neither is expected to make much practical difference.

*We assure the Chinese that America’s new “pivot” to Asia and the Pacific is not aimed...