THE demise of Eastern European communism and the disintegration of the Soviet Union have merely succeeded in deflecting America's unbounded suspicion and hatred in another direction.
The People's Republic of China is now bearing the brunt of an unsolicited campaign of vilification, inspired purely through an incredible combination of hypocrisy, ignorance and downright envy.
The allegations of human rights abuses in China are hypocritical in the extreme, when you consider the thousands of condemned prisoners awaiting execution in American penal institutions and the ignorance and envy that is generated and compounded by the inalienable truth, that the Americans are the major beneficiaries of trading partnerships with the Chinese.
Equally incongruous are objections to China's attempt to upgrade her military hardware, which has been undertaken openly and with overtures to America, and especially in light of the fact that many of her Asian neighbours are arming themselves to the teeth.
China, despite its weaknesses and shortcomings, has been a stabilising force for centuries and a continuous civilisation for several spans of time.
Its popular psychology has remained fairly constant over the last 20 centuries.
