If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the coronavirus pandemic, it’s that disaster containment and communism are incompatible.

Remember the Chernobyl disaster of 1986? It’s one of only two nuclear energy disasters that was rated at the maximum severity level on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The other was Fukushima. It was two days after the accident at Chernobyl that radiation levels set off alarms at a nuclear plant in Sweden. After determining the leak didn’t come from their plant, the Swedes contacted the Soviets. The Soviets denied anything was amiss. The Swedish government threatened to file an alert with the International Atomic Energy Agency. It was only then that the Soviets fessed up. Even then, they downplayed the extent of the damage. Airborne radioactive contamination rained down on parts of Western Europe for about nine days. What little trust there was in the Soviet Union evaporated in a nuclear cloud.

Whether Chernobyl led to the downfall of the Soviet Union or was merely a symptom of its corroded underpinnings will be left to historians. One thing we do know: It certainly didn’t help — the country soon began crumbling around the edges, and within five years, it was essentially kaput.

It’s been my belief that President Trump’s long-term goal is to set in motion the beginning of the end of communist China, though he obviously can’t say that out loud for diplomatic reasons. Massive trade tariffs have done irreparable damage to China. Forbes reported in July 2018 that “at least $50 billion worth of goods” had left China, with “another $200 billion likely by summer’s end.” With each negotiation, the communist Chinese got weaker.

Nikkei Asian Review reported in July 2019 that at least 50 companies had left China. Apple was relocating up to 30% of iPhone production out of China. HP and Dell were moving to Taiwan. GoPro to Mexico. Citizens Watch, Panasonic, and Casio Computer to Thailand. Toshiba and Mitsubishi were packing up and moving back to Japan. And not a moment too soon.

The one unifying point both U.S. political parties can now rally around is that we are far too dependent on China for critical products relating to medicines and medical supplies. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Rosemary Gibson, author of the book China Rx, said, “If China shut the door on exports of medicines and their key ingredients and raw material, U.S. hospitals and military hospitals and clinics would cease to function within months, if not days.”

Trump has also been sounding the alarm on Huawei, a multinational technology company controlled by the communist Chinese government. Although they bill themselves as “employee-owned,” researchers say this is misleading. According to a study titled "Who Owns Huawei?" by Christopher Balding and Donald Clarke, Huawei boasts that the company is 99% owned by a “trade union committee.” But Balding and Clarke point out that “trade union members have no right to assets held by a trade union.” Therefore, “if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.”

That’s why Trump has been adamantly against allowing Huawei to have anything to do with our 5G infrastructure. The communists in China are notorious for using their electronics to spy on other countries and their own citizens. The Brits have naively invited Huawei to build their next generation of wireless networks. Perhaps now, they’ll rethink that ill-considered decision.

China has also obviously been lying about the extent of coronavirus infections and deaths in mainland China. U.S. media outlets pitifully recite numbers spoon-fed to them by the Chinese propaganda machine without question. There are reports out of Wuhan that incinerators are working around the clock to deal with dead bodies. Not even the Chinese government will be able to keep a lid on the wide-scale devastation for very long.

Once the full extent of what China knew and when they knew it is exposed for all to see, the communist regime will be severely hobbled. It took a preventable pandemic to awaken the rest of the world to the brutality and ineptitude of the Chinese communist regime. The tens of thousands of people who died may well be regarded by history as soldiers whose deaths were not in vain. The dead may, at last, free 1.4 billion Chinese people from bondage.

Phil Valentine (@ValentineShow) is an award-winning radio talk show host (and now podcaster). He’s the author of three novels and the nonfiction book The Conservative’s Handbook. He broadcasts each weekday afternoon from SuperTalk 99.7FM in Nashville.