BEIJING

TO THOSE WHO insist that Donald Trump’s seizure of Nicolas Maduro and his wife was illegal, the US President’s supporters say that they are guided by the precedent of China’s attempt to stop the British trafficking opium into the Middle Kingdom during the 19th Century.

“The Chinese lost to the 19th Century British narco-state,” says Ulyssees Snapturtle, a Texas attorney, “and it destroyed their country for a century or more. We do not intend that to happen to the United States of America. Maybe if the Chinese had been able to send a fleet to London to arrest Queen Victoria in the 19th Century, things might have turned out very differently for them. And remember, what counts as armed attack now is far broader than what was even conceived of when the UN Charter as written. Drugs are a form of chemical warfare. They kill our citizens, they undermine our economy, and the tear our social fabric apart. Just like they did to China all those years ago. And don’t drug pushers carry guns?”