[jcranmer]

It's funny that you mention the WMDs in Iraq. This is an episode of US foreign policy that many people and countries (rightfully) criticized. Yet when it happened, the US didn't start boycotting everyone who criticized it; the worst that happened was US Congress deciding to change the name of "French Fries" to "Freedom Fries" in its cafeteria [1].

In contrast, China right now seems to be responding right now to anyone who dares to criticize it with immediate sanctions and reprisals. I'm not immediately aware of any time in the history of hegemon replacement cycles where either the old or the new hegemon acted in such a manner.

[1] Amusingly, the dish isn't even French, it's Belgian.

[petre]

A liar always covers their lies with more lies. In the case of totalitarian states such as the PRC, it's called propaganda, changing the narrative and rewriting history books with alternative history, aka fiction.

The Nixon administration took another approach in the US: they started the war on drugs to discredit and silence the anti war hippie movement. This worked fine for those in power, but had and still has a lot of victims. Chairman Xi would have probably pulled a Tiananmen.