There’s a cliché in science fiction called the “Butterfly Effect.” Taken by Ray Bradbury from some more recondite real-world science, it suggests that the flapping of a single butterfly’s wings can spark a causal chain with epic results. We see this truism play out in virtually every depiction of time travel. As a lover of alternate history, I come across it all the time. There’s certainly something to it: Imagine the impact of any of the following tweaks to the “timeline.” What if:

• Muhammad had found Jesus.
• Pope Leo X had listened to Martin Luther on church corruption.
• The British Parliament had agreed to repeal its taxes on the 13 colonies.
• John Wilkes Booth had fired at Abraham Lincoln, but missed.
• Hitler had gotten into art school.

Stalin’s Mustache

Here’s another “What If” that might surprise you: What if Stalin hadn’t had a mustache? It was making fun of that mustache in a private letter (opened by the secret police) that got decorated Red Army veteran Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn sent to a labor camp. Which is where he rediscovered Christ. And wrote The Gulag Archipelago, which exposed the profoundly evil effects of Marxism in action. That book, smuggled out of Russia, helped shatter the dominant pro-Marxist, or pro-appeasement, opinion of intellectuals throughout the West. Its witness gave hope to dissidents throughout the Eastern Bloc. And its power gave anti-Communists in Europe the spine they needed to (just barely) cooperate with Ronald Reagan’s rearmament — the cost of which bankrupted the Soviet Union, and finally caused its collapse.

Xi Jinping, the dictator of China, looks exactly like Winnie the Pooh.

So the fall of the Soviet Empire, in part, we can trace to the goofiness of Stalin’s droopy stash.

It’s a Blustery Day in Beijing

Will the radically nationalist autocracy now ruling China go over the brink thanks to a similar goofy cause? By the fact that Xi Jinping, the dictator who has consolidated power there, looks exactly like Winnie the Pooh?

The Chinese government seems to think so. And it’s not taking any chances. As the Daily Mail reports:

Disney’s Winnie the Pooh film, ‘Christopher Robin’, has been denied release in China.

The live-action family film, an adaptation of AA Milne’s classic story, has been banned by Chinese censors, according to various media reports.

While no official reason has been given, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s appearance was previously unfavourably compared to Winnie the Pooh’s, prompting a large-scale crackdown on the honey-loving cartoon bear.

…

The lovable but dimwitted bear has become a symbol of dissent in China with foes of the ruling Communist Party, which is highly sensitive to unfavourable depictions of its leader.

Government censors has been erasing the images that mocked Xi on social media. In June, Chinese authorities blocked HBO after ‘Last Week Tonight’ host John Oliver highlighted Xi’s sensitivity over being compared to Winnie the Pooh.

In 2015, the political analysis portal Global Risk Insights called a picture of Xi standing up through the roof of a parade car paired with an image of a Winnie the Pooh toy car ‘China’s most censored photo’ of the year.

China’s Paranoid, Expansionist Dictator

Asia expert, pro-life leader, and author of Bully of Asia Stephen Mosher explained Xi’s paranoia to The Stream a few months ago. How thin-skinned is China’s leader about the illegitimacy of his personal power? He banned the use of a letter in the Latin alphabet. The letter “N”:

But why in the world ban the letter “N”? The answer lies in Chinese algebra. The letter “N” represents an unknown variable. Where we in West use “X,” the Chinese use “N.” When the Chinese Communist Party secretly eliminated the two-term limit for president, the equation “N = ?” (N equals what?) became popular overnight. It meant, “How many terms is Xi Jinping going to serve?” The censors were not happy.

The Chinese people could not be allowed to directly criticize President Xi’s plan to stay in power forever. Not even indirectly by sending the letter “N” to each other. That subtly suggests that they oppose an indefinite number of five-year terms for Xi. The ever-alert censors quickly banned the letter “N” from all electronic communications.

No criticism of the new Red Emperor, however subtle, is allowed.

As Mosher explained, it no longer makes sense to speak of China as “communist.” That ideology, which Mao Zedong tried to implement more consistently than any world leader (except for Pol Pot) led China to famine and ruin. Deng Xiaoping sought to enrich China by accepting some market reforms, while cracking down fiercely (at Tienanmen Square) on citizens who sought political and religious freedom. What Xi Jianping is peddling there now is radical nationalism and a cult of the leader, combined with massive military outlays and a limited, managed capitalism. In other words, as Mosher documents, it’s National Socialism.

China’s rearming even faster than Hitler did in the 1930s. And it’s doing so with money it makes from one-sided trade deals that the U.S. signed under presidents Clinton and Bush.

Arming Faster than Hitler

China’s rearming even faster than Hitler did in the 1930s. And it’s doing so with money it makes from one-sided trade deals that the U.S. signed under presidents Clinton and Bush. As I commented on Breitbart Radio:

We have allowed China to become an economic powerhouse in one generation, effectively by destroying America’s industrial heartland; letting them cheat on trade deals; manipulate their currency; [and] steal hundreds of millions of dollars of our intellectual property. Every weapons system that we build at the cost of billions of dollars in research and development, they just pick up and copy it because we let them.

President Trump has aggressively challenged many of these one-sided deals. So China is pressuring businessmen whose companies benefit from the transfer of American industries and trade secrets. As Trump critic Marco Rubio told Fox News back in May:

You know, every day some group of CEOs comes marching into the White House and tries to talk the president down from the strong stand that he has taken on China. There’s a lot of voices in the administration that want to back down a little bit on the China thing. This confrontation with China is by far the most important thing facing this country on a global scale. This is going to define the next 80 years … They intend to replace us.

“Don’t Be Evil” Be Damned

Which companies are playing footsie with Winnie the Fascist Dictator? Google is one. The same company that games Internet searches to hurt conservatives in the U.S. is apparently willing to collaborate with Chinese political censorship, NPR reports.

We just learned that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had a Chinese spy on her payroll for 20 years.

Hey, at least the FBI is keeping us safe from clumsy Russian Facebook ads.

God has a sense of humor. He uses little things like Stalin’s mustache as the stone that brings down Goliath. Maybe the face of Winnie the Pooh, and the narrow vote margin in a few key states that elected Donald Trump, will prove to be the wind in the butterfly’s wings that blows down an evil empire.