China Won’t Bury Us, Either

As the Great Leap Forward was taken with preposterous production lies that resulted in the worst man-made famine in human history, so China's economic prosperity is, to some extent, a perpetual motion machine, an impossibility, constructed out of phony production numbers. "Premier, Li Keqiang...confided to American diplomats that GDP figures were “man-made” and unreliable, during a candid interaction in 2007 when he was the Party chief in Liaoning province, according to a State Department cable released by Wikileaks."

What has China ever done for humanity?...Take all the time you need. Garry Kasparov has a pithy way of summing up the past 18 months of tribulation. “China gave us the virus. And the free world gave us the vaccines.” My question was "for" humanity, not "to" humanity.

[China] did not use its entry into the so-called rules-based global order to play by the rules. It did not mean what it said when it promised Hong Kong “one country, two systems.” It could not be trusted to honor business and academic partnerships without stealing intellectual property on a massive scale. It has not turned its development schemes in vulnerable foreign countries, from Ecuador to Montenegro, into lasting foundations for mutual good will, rather than one-way exploitation.

And it's vaccine doesn't work.

In another century China was "that booby nation that makes the tea." Some things never change. Now they’re that booby nation that steals the gourmet tea brewers. China today is a Potemkin Village built on lies. Boy-soldier Xi frightens no one in his ridiculous Mao suit. No, China will not bury us, Bret Stephens is spot on in this column.