Reports about the precarious status of the Chinese labor force originated at that time. Brutality, backwardness, and so forth. The documentation for these reports was all shot in Chinese movie studios in order to spread to the rest of the world an image of a backward third-world empire. Artists loyal to the Party also reported abroad about the inhumane conditions in China. They accused. So to speak. And manifested the reputation of the country. Which in the meantime stabilized the currency. And increased state revenues. And with absurd speed, thanks to the mass of cheap labor and to the dictatorship, restructured the country. Everything old disappeared. New buildings popped up all over the place, shopping malls, cutting-edge factories, infrastructure, ecological and environmental protections were perfected, the air got—better. The Western world outsourced among other things its industry and manufacturing to China. The markets, you know the story. Which led to step 2 of the plan. In coalition with Russia, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and some Arab countries, the weakening of the West was tackled in earnest. Hacking, spying, vote manipulation, the electronic manipulation of the divisions within Western societies proceeded efficiently—also because most phones and the bulk of the software they ran were made in China.

You know the story.

The countries of the West were increasingly ruled by absurd, fatuous dictators. Sad men who reeked of failure, who accelerated the collapse of the Western system.

China bought half the world. Land in Africa, Pakistan, in the East, ports all over the world, businesses, buildings, mines, oil reserves, sites for mining rare earth elements. The domestic population had discovered the joy of consumption; they wouldn’t give it up for anything. They could buy new apartments, cars, and domestically produced Apple devices and Gucci bags. They were

Happy because they could consume.

So much for conspiracy theory number 569. Perhaps there was a bit of truth in it, perhaps not. Mr. Ma Wei was definitely very pleased with the developments of the world at the beginning of this glorious millennium.

It was summer

which meant

THE CHILDREN