It seems the issue of where Covid came from will soon cede its prime position in the global propaganda struggles to the question of who started the new Cold War. Now that Bill Clinton, Niall Ferguson and others are speaking more forcefully on this, it is only a matter of time before the Party propaganda machinery drop Wuhan and pivot back to their original mission, which was to pre-empt criticism of China’s increasingly assertive international stance by claiming the West has long been bent on suppressing China’s rise.

Does anyone have a moment that can be reasonably pointed to as the ideological beginning of the current conflict? One obvious candidate would be Wang Hunning’s trip to the US in 1988 and his 1991 book, America Against America. Any others?