Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon reports a provocative recommendation from a retired American general.

The Biden administration should force China to pay restitution for the deaths and economic havoc caused by the coronavirus, according to retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who was a senior National Security Council official in the Trump White House.

Kellogg, in a new doctrine produced by the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit research group, says the coronavirus pandemic must serve as a wake-up call to the American people and government about China’s threat to global stability.

“By immediately holding China accountable through restitution efforts and building new global efforts focused narrowly on violations of international standards and human rights, the United States will undercut China’s long-term ambitions,” Kellogg and his colleagues write, according to a full copy of the policy paper obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Kellogg and the America First Policy Institute will distribute the policy doctrine to congressional leaders and foreign-policy insiders to help create pressure on the Biden administration to take a tougher line on China. Kellogg said that one of the “disturbing pieces” about the U.S.-China standoff is that President Joe Biden does not appear to understand the severity of the threat. “That needs to be focused in on. We did it during the Trump administration, [but] I haven’t seen that by this administration,” Kellogg told the Free Beacon in his first interview on the policy paper.

“This nation and its people need to understand that China is an emergent threat. They need to be accountable and held accountable for their actions and it may take some tough choices going forward, and they need to be ready for that,” Kellogg said. “China is looking at us in a way where they think we’re a weakening nation.” …

… While the United States has long viewed China as an economic and military competitor, the spread of the coronavirus must forge an approach that Kellogg and his colleagues call “great tragedy accountability.”