What happens if you are ill-informed and ill-advised when you launch a major battle? You'll end up in a mess; without your bearings – right?

This could well be the case with the White House, after taking advice from Peter Navarro in addressing trade frictions with China.

But what is worse, Mr. Navarro has proved himself to be a faulty architect of this battle, who wishfully mixes truth with fiction in academic studies and policymaking, both as a scholar and as the president's advisor on trade.

Ever since he became director of the White House National Trade Council nearly three years ago, the academic circle and the media have questioned his lack of experience, competence and China knowledge which are indispensable for his job.

He doesn't have a background in Chinese studies, doesn't speak Chinese, and only made his first trip to China reportedly last year, yet, before this, he wrote policy books to advocate tariff hikes and other measures to confront China.

Few other economists have endorsed his ideas. Many find him both misled and misleading on the real nature of foreign trade and the internal causes of trade imbalances, such as high expenditure, a low savings rate and profit-driven resettlement of American manufacturing companies. He even confused tariffs with value-added tax or VAT. But that didn't stop him being more radical and active on trade matters.

What's more shocking is his lack of integrity and moral ethics. He wrote several books on economics, including best-selling "Death by China," and is found to have quoted a non-existing Harvard PhD student/scholar a dozen times. That scholar, Ron Vara, a China hawk, turns out to be an imaginary character Navarro quotes to support his notion of the "China threat."

When the lie was uncovered, Navarro only playfully called it an "inside joke" and a "whimsical device and pen name" purely for "entertainment value." Ron Vara turns out to be an anagram of Navarro's last name, meaning he quotes for self-confirmation, although mainstream economists accused him of creating a new wave of thought dubbed as the "stupid school."

By so doing – Navarro cheated his co-authors who had no knowledge of the character. He breached editorial standards with his "inside joke" embedded in academic works, and he misled readers with Ron Vara fabricating threats of popular Chinese products to American customers.

In short, Navarro relies on a fictional China expert and self-fabricated views to reinforce his policy advice on how to deal with a major trading partner and market.

That's no joke!

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