STRANGE but TRUE

Sixty years ago, China’s Mao Zedong launched his Four Pests Campaign to eradicate sparrows, mosquitoes, flies, and rats. A year on, Beijing was importing sparrows from Russia to tackle the resulting insect plague, far more devastating to its crops than the sparrows had ever been. The Four Pests Campaign continued, but with “bed bugs“replacing “sparrows” on the hit list.