It took more than a year, but the press and public health “experts” have finally begun to take seriously the possibility that the coronavirus emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. If this turns out to be true, the potential punishment issued against China’s communist regime could make the Treaty of Versailles look like a parking ticket.

Even before the pandemic, the Chinese communists were responsible for torturing and surveilling their own citizens, committing genocide against its Uyghur population in Xinjiang, funding the North Korean dictatorship, and militarizing its occupation of the South China Sea. The neoliberal bet that liberalizing economic ties with China would bring about political liberalization has failed. At last, a popular consensus of dislike and distrust of China has coalesced, not just between the overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans, but also among our allies, ranging from the United Kingdom and Germany to Australia and Japan.