The darker view described China as a changeless land whose despotic rulers would always pose a threat to world peace. Western reporters' descriptions of the perpetrators of China's Boxer rebellion could easily substitute for descriptions of leaders of China's Communist party today. To realize just how much continuity there has been in American media images of China, one has only to look at recent best sellers by American journalists. American imagery, of course, is not oblivious to surface change. Optimists now talk of selling Big Macs and Guess jeans to the Chinese.
Pessimists add new twists to the old demonizing themes.
The most bizarre case in point refers to Chinese eating habits. What has not changed is the tendency to stereotype and sensationalize Chinese affairs and personalities. Americans insist on viewing China solely through the prism of our most extreme hopes and fears. The massacres in Beijing and Chengdu need to be remembered and condemned, not the least because the Deng Xiaoping regime continues to deny that they took place. But we need to get the facts straight.