I submit that this mentality persists amongst the ruling elites in China to this day. Even in recent times, one must ask how much was lost in the ‘Great Leap Forward’ and the Cultural Revolution’ (Orwellian, isn’t it?) in just this last century.
Priceless artifacts and documents were destroyed. They’ll do it again.
That is true. But to be fair Communism was a Western European invented ideology. So who are we to judge? I mean WW1 and WW2 nearly ended European civilization if not for America to take up the slack. Who knows? In the long term WW1 and WW2 (and the Cold War) could have destroyed the European and American Western Civilizations.