These days China is always in the news. If it's not the U.S. spy-plane incident, then it's Beijing's bid for the 2008 Olympics or the Chinese Communist Party's human-rights record or Beijing's bullying of Taiwan. After decades of condescending reporting on China, the international media is finally starting to take China seriously -- sometimes a bit too seriously.
Critics of U.S. President George W. Bush maintain that his administration's assertiveness in the Pacific is leading to full-scale confrontation with China, the start of a new cold war.
Human-rights activists insist that China is the modern incarnation of totalitarian evil. Alarmists from Wall Street believe that China has accumulated more economic power than it is able to handle responsibly.