Ultimate goal

China's happy future: One system, six countries

The geopolitical tectonic plates are moving, and the inevitable dismantlement of the Chinese Communist empire has begun.

History teaches that the lifespan of a major communist power is about seven decades, even under the best of circumstances — that is, when the dictatorship is given every strategic advantage through sporadic Western naivete, timidity and other motivations.

That was the experience of the Soviet Union after the victorious World War II Allies handed over half of Europe to Moscow’s tender mercies and expanded and prolonged communism’s rule of half the world for another 40 years.

Now, the People’s Republic of China, itself having been given a four-decades extension by misguided Western policies before and after the Tiananmen Square massacre, is finally reaching the end of the line — and Donald Trump and Hong Kong are the bellwethers of its demise.

As a candidate, president-elect and then as president, Trump made clear that he was throwing out the old rulebook and approaching both domestic and international issues with a fresh, and very brash, attitude.