No one with real power has the guts to admit it, but a few years ago the rest of the world gave up caring about the evils perpetrated by the government of China. Perhaps it was the moment when the People’s Republic overtook Japan to become the world’s second biggest economy. Perhaps it was the accession of Xi Jinping, the most uncompromisingly authoritarian Chinese leader since Mao. At some point in the past 15 years, the right-thinking governments of western Europe and North America, confronted by the oppression, cruelty and petty vindictiveness of the Chinese regime towards its opponents, shrugged their shoulders and turned away.

It’s not that the West ignores the rounding up of Muslim Uighurs in “re-education” camps in Xinjiang province, the persecution