108075249581483522

Today comes the sad news that Kang Byong-sop, one of the courageous defectors who told the world about North Korea’s gas chambers, was seen on Pyongyang TV, reading a forced recantation of his charges. Undoubtedly, his days are numbered; one can only hope that his family will somehow manage to survive. China sent him back, of course, in clear violation of international law and the most fundamental principles of morality . . . both of which are clearly meaningless to the ChiComs.

To the heirs of Mao, power still grows from the barrel of a gun. Democracy is the mortal enemy of their grip on power, particularly if it were to be practiced in a free and united Korea on their own border. They will sacrifice anything to keep the natural aspirations of human beings from loosening that grip–especially their fraudulent Marxist principles. Any Chinese “liberalization” of its economy must be viewed in that context. In the end, it’s all about the preservation of the ruling class’s wealth and power.

We in America are still exhausted from the last Cold War (as some grow weary of the current hot one, small as it may still be in historical terms). That may explain our reluctance to acknowledge that we’ve entered a new one. The Chinese have no such reluctance. They are openly fighting a soft war against us and our values. The front stretches from the streets of Seoul to the Taiwan Strait, to the conference rooms at the UN Headquarters.

The fact that China holds a seat in the U.N. General Assembly–much less the Security Council–tells me everything I need to know about the moral authority of those bodies.