Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a Democratic presidential primary debate Thursday, Dec. 19, 2019, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) created a stir among when he defended Cuba saying the Communist country wasn’t “all bad” that they had “massive literacy programs.”

Of course, those “programs” were more about indoctrination and that you can have literacy without communism, Democrats.

But after he was called out on it, Sanders doubled down, not only continuing to defend Cuba, but then also praising China, claiming that it has lifted more people out of poverty than any country in history.

WOW! Bernie Sanders just doubled down on his defense of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's literacy program at tonight's #CNNTownHall.

While also praising Communist China for having taken more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history. pic.twitter.com/XGv3KHj6z3

— Francis Brennan (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@FrancisBrennan) February 25, 2020

Yukong Zhao has a few things to say to Bernie Sanders. He was born in China in 1963 under the rule of Mao Zedong and he knows what it was like firsthand. What Bernie misses? The millions China killed through famine and Communism.

From Washington Examiner:

All economic activities were controlled by the government in Maoist China. Private enterprise and market transactions were banned. Profit incentives did not exist. As a result, technological progress stagnated and the economy collapsed.

This is because the state thought it knew how to allocate resources better than the market, but it did not. In Chinese cities, rice, meat, vegetable oil, and even clothing for citizens was rationed. Each urban citizen only had one or two pounds of meat to eat for an entire month. There were frequent supply shortages. On numerous occasions, I had to rise at four o’clock in the morning to wait in line for hours to buy meat.

From 1958 to 1962, Mao’s Great Leap Forward, a gargantuan collectivization movement, led to mass famine and more than 20 million dead. Born in the aftermath of this disastrous social experiment, I escaped famine and death, but I could not escape another core element of socialism: political control and repression.

The Communists destroyed the economy and millions of lives as a result.

They continued to be repressed through the Cultural Revolution which continued until Mao died in 1976, which left 200 million poverty stricken and malnourished.

According to the Washington Examiner:

By 1978, 9 out of 10 Chinese people were living below the global extreme poverty line or on less than $2 per day. But that has since changed.

Today, less than 1% of Chinese citizens live on less than $2 per day. But that’s not thanks to socialism. That’s because China’s dictatorship finally opened their country up to ideas such as private ownership and free trade. They lifted some onerous price controls and regulations, allowing private enterprise to explode.

Nothing to do with Communism and only because the Communists had first destroyed the economy and starved millions.

Now, they are also repressing millions with Uighurs and other political and religious prisoners being held in camps, not to mention the repression of people in places like Hong Kong where they are fighting for their freedom.

But it’s not only Sanders with a China problem, but Mike Bloomberg and Joe Biden, with Bloomberg being tied up with business ties in a big way and Biden’s son being on a board of a company with Chinese government connections.