Eternal China, Eternal Conspiracies

The Game That Never Ends

Only yesterday as the Chinese reputedly reckon time—less than a year ago by the pedestrian Western calendar adopted by the country’s Communist rulers— schoolchildren throughout the world’s most populous country were learning to write the intricate Chinese ideographs by inditing sample sentences denouncing “the arch-traitor Teng Hsiao-ping.” Today, those same schoolchildren read with inspired enthusiasm newspaper accounts of First Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-ping’s faithful service to their nation.