In a recent article in this magazine, Tim Stanley upped the ante by suggesting that the government of China is “pure evil”. His observation was part of an ingenious argument about liberalism and the crackdown on protestors in Hong Kong. His conclusion: “It’s time to confront Beijing’s communist tyranny head-on.”
I am not so sure – but it’s certainly a good moment for Beijing’s critics to study China’s history. President Xi Jinping should do the same. The next time he feels like coming down hard on Christians in China, he might refer to an edict of Emperor Kangxi in 1692, concerning Jesuit missionaries: “The Europeans are very quiet; they do not excite any disturbances in the provinces, they do no harm to anyone, they commit no crimes, and their doctrine has nothing in common with that of the false sects in the empire, nor has it any tendency to excite sedition.”
