In Beijing sits Xi Jinping, the Red Emperor. His project is to make totalitarianism work. Already in complete control at home, his global influence increases by the day. Other nations are falling over each other to pay tribute to the People’s Republic.
Beijing does not impose its political model on others, but demands something else: silence. If you want to collaborate with China, you are not allowed to say anything unfriendly. Crossing the regime risks retribution or expulsion.
After the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, China cut ties with Norway for six years. To normalize relations again, Norway last year had to promise, in writing, to undertake no action that could disturb the new harmony. Since then, Norway’s government -- whose identity in the world rests on its championship of democracy and human rights -- has had not a word to say about human rights abuses in China. Likewise, activist groups like Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature, and Conservation International stay silent on China’s environmental destruction in the South China Sea.
In Moscow sits Vladimir Putin, a would-be modern-day Czar. He has less power to play with than his friends in Beijing. He can, however, make himself admired for promoting Russia’s greatness up against a Western world that Russians are told is hostile to them.
중략................