Look, I'm going to be honest...
I've got a real axe to grind with China.
Not the Chinese people, to be clear. I'm sure they're lovely.
But the central government in Beijing - Xi Jinping and all the other autocrats.
Call me old-school, but I don't like communism.
I hate the censorship, the surveillance, the intolerance, and the complete lack of freedom.
I hate the hawkish mentality, the sense of entitlement, and the military parades. (It reeks of "little-guy" energy.)
So it always bothered me, to an extent, that for the past few decades China has gotten so much glowing press from the media and investment analysts.
The phrase "economic miracle," for example, or when analysts flippantly assert that China is actually pretty capitalist these days.
It's not.
China isn't smarter or stronger than the rest of the world, either. It's just highly effective at spewing out propaganda.
And of course, it's really good at cheating.
China isn't playing chess so much as it's cheating the game.
Any advances it's made in technological development have come on the back of trade secrets and intellectual property pioneered by, and stolen from, Western entities.
The massive pile of cash and debt it's accrued is blood money, squeezed out of human rights violations and slave labor.
And the eye-grabbing growth figures it uses to make headlines are exaggerated at best, and a mirage at worst.
So why does the investing community continue to play along?
That's what I've wondered for the past decade and a half.
But mercifully, it looks like that's starting to change.
Over the past year or so, China's mask has begun to slip.
For one thing, it played a part in spreading a plague around the world - an act it continues to shirk any bit of responsibility for.
It's grown more belligerent.
For years, I've been warning about China's hostility in the South China Sea, where it's muscling its neighbors out of their own territorial rights. Not only that, but it's built up artificial islands in the region and militarized them with military bases, air strips, and ports.