The tenor of U.S.-China relations for much of the first year of the administration of President George W. Bush was set by a crisis that need not have occurred. How the situation was handled and eventually resolved is instructive. It tells us about a beleaguered communist leadership in the buildup to major generational transition (scheduled for late 2002 and early 2003) and the mettle of a democratically elected U.S. government tested early in its tenure by a series of foreign policy crises and a carefully coordinated set of devastating terrorist strikes against the continental United States....