NASA Administrator Bill Nelson recently accused China of plotting a military takeover of the moon. He noted the several successful landings the Chinese have achieved on the lunar surface. Through its English-language mouthpiece, the Global Times, the Chinese Communist Party hotly denied any such ambitions and accused the United States of “hypocrisy” and harboring imperial ambitions of its own concerning Earth’s nearest neighbor.

First, we can dispense with any protestations on behalf of the CCP of high-mindedness concerning its space program. China has been fortifying islands in the South China Sea. It is casting a covetous eye on Taiwan, the inhabitants of which consider themselves citizens of an independent country, while China regards it as a “breakaway province.” China is developing a “belt and road” system of infrastructure investments designed to bind much of the developing world to itself. China is busily stealing intellectual property all over the world. It is committing human rights atrocities that rival those of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, including the genocide of the Uyghur minority.