October 1 marks a major milestone in the long, sad history of tyranny and oppression. Communist China turns 70, making it by one measure the longest run that this ugly form of government has had on earth, surpassing the Soviet Union, which only made it to 69 before imploding under the weight under its own folly. (Communist Russia always celebrated 1917 as its birthday, but it wasn’t until 1922 that it was able to force much of Eurasia to buckle to its perverted will and establish the Soviet Union.)

There was a big parade in Beijing, complete with 15,000 goose-stepping troops and heavy military equipment meant to impress — and intimidate — the world with how far China has come since Mao Zedong and his murderous followers declared the communist state in 1949. Since that time, the Chinese government has slaughtered an estimated 70 million of its own citizens (we’ll never know for sure how many), jailed millions more, and subjugated an entire population that accounts for close to one-fifth of all the people on the planet.

It’s no coincidence that the communist anniversary featured a civilian being shot with a live round by police for the first time during the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. Nor is it a coincidence that President Xi Jinping wore a slate-gray “Mao” suit for the “festivities” at Tiananmen Square, the site of a Communist Party-perpetrated massacre 30 years ago.

Unlike the Soviet Union at this stage of the game, China appears to be thriving. At least if you listen to the state-approved reports that come out of Beijing and the hagiographic fairy tales that come from the sycophantic media here in the U.S. However, China’s goal of regional, and potentially global, hegemony is far from assured.

China’s economy is growing at its slowest pace in 30 years. The population is becoming more comfortable with a higher standard of living, and that has inevitably led to calls for an improved quality of life (read: more personal freedom) that the government is not willing to concede. The aftershocks of the decades-long one-child policy that predominantly favored males over females has left the country with fewer young workers to support its aging population, as well as a skewed social fabric full of men unable to find wives. The trade war with the United States, which China started, has hit the Chinese economy hard. And, for the first time in a generation, China’s unanswered cheating on trade, currency, intellectual property rights, and corporate espionage have been met head on by an American president willing to take it to task.

Socialist sycophants in America have looked at China for years and predicted its rise and America’s descent as one and the same. They point to China as an example that socialism works, claiming that the Soviet Union was a solitary failed experiment. The difference between the two nations is that the Soviets truly did practice a communist economy, which of course was doomed to failure. By contrast, China adapted its own market economy to coexist with a totalitarian political party, It became the world’s second-largest economy in 2011, tripling its GDP since then. It’s drawing in American investors with promises of riches. Towing to the hard communist line, those investments never trickle further down than the ruling class while strengthening its own militaristic position globally.

In the process, China has found useful idiots like Tim Cook of Apple and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who lecture us about social justice at every turn here in America while ignoring the egregious human-rights violations taking place in China on an epic scale. Why? Money. Always the money.

Former New York City mayor and longtime leftist billionaire donor Michael Bloomberg is a perfect example. Bloomberg, a supposed friend to the environment, was recently called out on his support of China in the face of that country’s rampant environmental degradation. His response?

“China is doing a lot. Yes, they’re still building a lot of coal-fired power plants … but they’re now moving plants away from the cities.” Wait, it gets better. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping is not a dictator. He has to satisfy his constituents or he’s not going to survive.”

This is the same Xi who not too long ago changed the law to allow himself to be president of China for life. The same Xi who presides over a country whose greenhouse-gas output is double that of the United States. But Bloomberg won’t badmouth him because Bloomberg has a lot of money tied up in Chinese investments. As do many of the American companies that praise China while sanctimoniously criticizing the United States.

The Chinese government has done a frighteningly good job of making it look good with American elites. But make no mistake. Communist China is an enemy of Liberty, of human rights, and of our way of life. Let us hope that it doesn’t see a 75th anniversary.

Exit quotes from American presidents speaking about communist tyranny:

“The march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.” —Ronald Reagan

“Congratulations to President Xi and the Chinese people on the 70th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China!” —Donald Trump

Trump’s policies may be working, but he could take some rhetorical lessons from Reagan and fewer cues from Bloomberg.