The scales of American justice keep tilting toward China

A federal judge blocked the Pentagon's attempt to restrict Chinese pharmaceutical contractor WuXi AppTec after determining the Defense Department lacked evidence for its designation and had misrepresented a portfolio investment as military ownership. The company, which earned $4.6 billion from U.S. clients last year, is the latest Chinese firm to beat a Pentagon blacklist in American court, following earlier losses over TikTok, WeChat, Xiaomi and Luokung Technology.

The piece frames this pattern — due process, evidentiary standards, courts that sometimes side against the government — as an asymmetry favoring an authoritarian rival unbound by similar constraints. A Brookings fellow is quoted calling the ruling a testament to the fairness of the U.S. court system; a CSIS adviser calls due process a potentially fatal flaw of Western democracies.

The Supreme Court separately blocked Trump's emergency tariff powers against China in February, prompting a pivot to Section 301 tariffs justified by forced-labor allegations, which the piece notes can also be challenged if evidence falls short.

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