What is happening in Venezuela may have momentous consequences for China. On the eve of a critical Trump-Xi summit, Beijing may need to confront reality differently.

The prestigious Beijing publisher Sanlian Shudian recently reprinted Mao Haijian’s 2019 book on the Opium War, The Collapse of the Celestial Court. According to the book, in the 19th century, the Qing Empire fell because the court collectively failed to recognize the truth about the country’s and the world’s real situation.

The concept is fundamental to the Party’s official rhetoric and philosophy, embodied in Mao Zedong’s phrase “seeking truth from facts,” shishi qiushi. The principle is so crucial that Deng used it to change the name of the Party’s theoretical journal. It was formerly Red Flag and then became Qiushi.

The veiled implication is that today’s Chinese government does not seek the truth. But the problem of truth is epistemological, complex in theory, and infernal in practice.

What is the truth? Who speaks it, and do they do so only for the sake of telling the truth,.

As the fate of Venezuela hangs in the balance, the future of Iran is uncertain, but the US should be careful not to become entangled in a trap that could unravel many of the region’s American interests.

(with updates)

The US has carried out strikes inside Venezuela. Explosions rocked the capital, Caracas, following months of threats by President Donald Trump against Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.

The Venezuelan government said attacks also took place in the states of Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira, prompting Maduro to declare a national emergency and mobilize defense forces. American forces may have captured Maduro. The events are a stark warning for Iran. Yet Venezuela could be pretty simple compared to Iran.

The recent wave of protests in Iran has raised many hopes in the West that the hostile Iranian regime will fall. However, Iran is a powder keg and must be managed with extreme caution.

It is unclear whether these protests will succeed in overthrowing the ayatollahs, who, over the past 45 years, have proven to be highly.