As I write this, there are over a quarter of a million recorded deaths from the corona virus and many many more to come. We know now that the virus originated in Wuhan China, probably in its virology lab, and that the Chinese concealed the fact that it was contagious between humans and deadly for weeks. They allowed a Lunar New Year celebration in Wuhan that involved tens of thousands of people, and also permitted 5 million inhabitants of Wuhan to leave the city and spread the virus. Moreover, they permitted hundreds of thousands of Chinese to travel abroad to celebrate the Lunar New Year and infect people in more than 200 countries across the globe.

Whatever one may say about the origin of the virus – it could have been the result of an accident – what cannot be denied is that the cover-up by the Chinese Communist dictatorship was deliberate and calculated, as most likely was its failure to close its borders until the virus was contained. In other words, this was a hostile attack on an innocent world, justified most probably as an effort to protect the Chinese Communist regime. So ferocious is this self-preservation imperative that the regime has launched a global campaign accusing the United States military of creating the virus, a lie so monstrous it is reminiscent of the lies promulgated by the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.

For almost twenty years since China was admitted to the World Trade Organization in 2001, the Chinese regime has been mistakenly regarded by western leaders as a worthy member of the international community of nations. American leaders have regarded it as worthy of being entrusted with the supply lines of medicines and other health supports vital for survival during a pandemic like this one. Prior to 2001, China was treated as a pariah state, a policy that took root when the Communist Party seized power in Beijing in 1949, and proceeded to murder more than 100 million Chinese in the process of transforming China into a socialist state. China’s 1950 decision to go to war with the United States and prop up another totalitarian regime in North Korea was also a warning to the West to treat China as the hostile power it most self-evidently still is.

Over the next fifty years, however, despite the monstrous casualties of China’s socialist transformation, attitudes in the West began to change. This was encouraged by the passing of the dictator MaoZedong and his successor’s introduction of market features into the Chinese economy. Responding to these developments, Western leaders adopted a kind of inverted Marxist view of the power of economics to shape society. Eventually, they came to believe that if the Chinese Communists adopted the economic reforms the World Trade Organization demanded as the price of admission, economic forces would transform the Communist system and make China a worthy partner in the community of nations. A quarter of a million unnecessary deaths and counting should be sufficient to put that illusion to rest.