NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE I n a popular movie two decades ago, hard-eyed criminals released into Sydney a woman infected with a virus, knowing that unsuspecting Australians would catch the highly contagious disease and, traveling on, unwittingly spread death across a hundred homelands. This past winter, the hard-eyed leaders of China did worse. They allowed not one, but thousands of infected to leave China and enter an unsuspecting world, a world lulled by Beijing. The crucial question is: Why?“China caused an enormous amount of pain [and] loss of life . . . by not sharing the information they had,” Secretary of State Pompeo said on April 23. America is angry, he added, and while much remains to be known, China “will pay a price.”No subpoenas, no oversight committees, no tell-all books will expose President Xi’s calculations as the novel coronavirus spread inside China. The unelected of Beijing guard well their secret debates. The CCP knows the virtues of opacity, of letting uncertainty, c...
