For some of us in the China-watching business (I have been there for more than 40 years), there has always been a China “threat.” It began with the 1950-53 Korean civil war, which initially had nothing to do with China.

Indeed, if any outside power was involved in North Korea's attack on its rival government in the South, it was the Soviet Union, not China. The Communist regime in Beijing had just come to power after a protracted civil war with the rival Kuomintang (KMT) regime. Its troops were being moved to the south of the country, far from Korea, in preparation for the final attack on the KMT enemy which had fled to Taiwan.