COLUMN: Trump's China trade deal ignores real issues

By many counts, the trade deal President Trump signed on Jan. 15 with China lacks heft. It doesn't remove all the tariffs, it doesn't impose any major penalties on intellectual property theft, and it punts completely on issues including China's state subsidies to prop up its own companies in international markets. Yet on one matter, the agreement could dramatically alter the U.S.-China relationship and the future of global democracy. If he means it, the United States will make an enormous strategic error: treating this minor trade deal as reason for a closer relationship with Beijing and turning a blind eye to its unfolding atrocities. This new ceasefire on trade should mark the beginning -- not the end -- of assertive, values-based engagement with China. Rather than seeking renewed harmony, Trump should put aside tariff squabbles and focus on the most important item on the U.S.-China agenda: the Chinese Communist Party's subversion of democracy and human rights worldwide, using both homegrown and Western technology to do it.