Our biggest geopolitical tragedy, Part One

Westerners made fun of Vladimir Putin after he declared in April 2005 that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. The "epidemic of collapse" spread to Russia itself, he told the Federal Assembly, and contributed to a severe economic downturn, unstable finances and paralysis of the social sphere. "Mass poverty came to be seen as the norm." If the economic downturn, unstable finances and social paralysis now taking hold in the West can be traced back to any specific event, it's the adoption of the one-China policy beginning in the 1970s. It was this decision that gave China the whip it could use anytime anyone challenged its expansionism. It was this policy that ultimately allowed China to assume significant control over international organizations, including the WHO. And it was this same policy that is dividing Czech politics. Recognizing the one-China policy was, and is, our biggest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.