A story of a trafficked bride shocks China

IF ALL GOES to plan for Communist Party leaders, the year 2022 should show the world that China represents the future. State television kicked off the lunar new year with greetings from the crew of the country’s first space station, the Tiangong, beamed to over a billion viewers. February saw the capital, Beijing, safely host a Winter Olympics during a global pandemic. Athletes were secluded in high-technology quarantine bubbles, before competing on slopes of artificial snow. In a sign of the country’s allure as a sporting power, a freestyle-ski champion born and raised in America, 18-year-old Eileen Gu, chose to compete for China, her mother’s homeland, earning two gold medals and one silver.