Cartoon commentary | Special treatment

Cartoon by Tan Xiguang

The aftershocks triggered by the release of the Epstein case files are rippling across the United States and Europe. Over the past three decades, apart from Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell being punished, the other individuals implicated in the case have remained unscathed.

The newly disclosed documents cut like a sharp blade, piercing the "facade of civilization" of the American judicial system and stripping away the "disguises" of the Western elite. They lay bare a fundamental contradiction in American society: when the powerful are given special treatment, has the basic principle that "all are equal before the law" been reduced to an empty slogan?