Editorial: Where Ties With Communist China Are Close, the Coronavirus Follows Severe COVID-19 outbreaks highlight different countries’ entanglements with Beijing

EXCERPTS FROM MARCH 3, EDITORIAL

In the United States, one of the earliest- and worst-hit places was the Seattle area in Wash-ington state. By March 20, the state had seen 74 deaths from the virus, around a third of the national total.

In the late 1970s, in the early days of the CCP’s deceptive economic reforms, it was the port of Seattle that welcomed the first Chinese cargo ships. In the years since, with increasing enthusiasm from local politicians and businesses, Seattle has hosted all four of the PRC’s heads of state, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping.

The decades since saw the CCP wage a secret Cold War against the United States, funneling America’s technology and jobs to mainland China in an onslaught abetted by oppor-tunistic profit-seekers, who compromised America’s conscience. Recently, the CCP has attempted to portray its draconian handling of the epidemic as a triumph for the Party’s authoritarian system, going so far as to pin the blame for a disaster of its own making on the United States.

Misled by the CCP’s propaganda machine and a left-leaning domestic media environment fixated on the failures—whether real or imagined—of the U.S. system, many Chinese residing overseas have made the decision to return home.

But the Chinese historical record is more sobering. Throughout the centuries, plagues and other calamities signaled the downfall of imperial dynasties. And at present—with growing numbers of whistleblowers standing up to contradict official figures that downplay the mainland epidemic—the CCP’s claim that it has curbed the virus rings as false as the lies it deployed last year to cover up the initial outbreak in Wuhan.

Taking history as a mirror, as ancient Chinese scholars did, it is apparent that the pandemic is a calamity linked with the CCP and its 70 years of brutal rule. And today, the world is an interconnected community. Any country, community, or organization that keeps too close to the CCP and falls for its deception will taste the bitter fruits of that involvement.

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