History won’t wait — Trump is at the door

US President Donald Trump has captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, taken over the country, and is now eyeing Colombia and Greenland, letting the ends justify the means and ushering in a dazzling new age of 21st-century imperialism.

This is great. The Chinese public is buzzing over talk of a world neatly sliced into three — US, Russia and China. Their excitement soared when America floated the idea of a “G2”, apparently declaring the Pacific big enough for just China and the US in a new dual-empire order, with poor Vladimir Putin quietly left out of the global playdate.

This shows that China not only venerates Qin Shi Huang’s unification of all under heaven — i.e., the entire world — but also that Chinese President Xi Jinping seeks to point the way forward for humanity. If you don’t evolve into an empire, no one would give you the time of day. The Chinese people have long accepted, admired and coveted imperialism, and still beat their chests and stamp their feet in chagrin over Zheng He’s aborted voyages to the Western Seas.

The stars have aligned. It’s the Year of the Horse, and Trump has galloped in first to occupy Venezuela — although whether he’s riding a majestic steed or a stubborn donkey is anyone’s guess. He has graciously shown the world how to capture Maduro alive, clearing the stage for China’s wolf warriors to follow suit. No tiptoeing, no mere talk: snatch up the “Taiwan independence fugitive” Lai Ching‑te and bring him to Beijing, and let’s see who’s really in charge.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is China’s version of imperialism: securing ports and mineral wealth in Africa, keeping tribal chiefs and heads of state smiling with gifts, and turning the continent into an economic outpost.

Many Chinese men have already gone to Africa to settle and blaze a trail, marrying African women and having children, producing a distinctive new human type of Asian-African mixed heritage. No discrimination intended — one can imagine African nations eventually taking a page from early British-ruled Hong Kong, with their own Sino-African version of the Hotung family (何东, 东 for “east”). Perhaps they’ll call it “Hosai” (何西, 西 for “west”), a herald of a curious new era of cultural mingling, racial fusion and mercantile ambition. Take it lightly at your peril; the future is anyone’s guess.

With China joining the G2 competition, American imperialism suddenly benefits the whole world. When US oil companies move into Venezuela, oil prices drop; drug imports are cut off; and the streets of Los Angeles and New York see fewer zombies. Meanwhile, Confucius Institutes and research centres on Xi Jinping Thought will spread across BRI countries. Africa will enjoy a new Enlightenment and resist Islamisation, while all Chinese — including those in Hong Kong — will gain fresh opportunities to expand global business. How could imperialism not be a good thing? It’s superb.

Now that Trump has made the first move, I can hardly wait for him to send his son Barron to Venezuela as governor. The Venezuelans are already pro-American, and a bold new kick-off promises maximum results for minimal effort.

Such an opportunity comes once in a thousand years, and China should not hold back. Yet at this critical juncture, Hong Kong quivers — like the legendary Duke of Ye, who professed to love dragons but bolted in terror when confronted with a real one.

For example, a Hong Kong columnist wrote: “America’s modus operandi is to dominate the weak and small with its power and size. People are used to that. But this brazen invasion of Venezuela and lightning-fast kidnapping of Maduro and his wife is unheard of, showing that the Americans have taken their bandit nature to the extreme. International law, national sovereignty, and the UN Charter are worth nothing to them.”

The UN Charter — of course, it’s worth damn all. The so-called Sino-British Joint Declaration registered at the UN has already been declared null and void by China. If this self-righteous, super-obvious rhetoric were translated into English and sent back to Washington by the US consulate, Trump would die laughing and mutter: coward.

Everyone knows that without imperialism and colonialism, there would be no modern human civilisation; no international law; no opening of the five treaty ports in the late Qing dynasty; no Shanghai of today or the British and French concessions, fondly remembered; no American-founded Tsinghua University, Jiaotong University, or Lingnan University; no colonial Hong Kong under governor Sir Henry Pottinger, or the Hotung family opening up East-West trade; and certainly no Jardine Matheson, Robert Kuok, Run Run Shaw or Li Ka-shing. 

Hence, Taiwanese writer and public figure Li Ao once said, “Imperialism is an old human ailment — nothing to write home about. Any nation pursuing unification, any country seeking strength, will inevitably see it flare up. ‘Big brother, don’t lecture little brother’ — all crows are alike; the big ones needn’t mock the small ones.”

Seeing the meltdown of woke Americans, we should of course welcome the consolidation and revival of 21st-century imperialism and colonialism; this is crucial to the resurgence of Western Christianity and rational civilisation.

Furthermore, with a single move, the US imperialists exposed China’s air defence radar in Venezuela as a paper tiger. This national humiliation makes China’s next moves all the more urgent: first Taiwan, then the Ryukyu Islands, then the South China Sea. The pattern mirrors Trump’s own playbook: Venezuela first, then Cuba, then Greenland and the Atlantic.

Why keep playing hide-and-seek with Qin Shi Huang in some fantasy drama? The First Emperor, the new Great Qin Empire, is right here — stop gaping, stop talking. Just do it. Your turn. Trump’s already at the door.

Related: Trump’s Maduro raid and the hypocrisy of the West | What Maduro’s arrest means for China’s influence in Latin America