As if a person who has become intimately involved with China (as adoptive parents and parents-to-be do), the drums are continuing to rise in volume somewhere in the background. "Is China preparing for war with the U.S.?" the articles ask (and more often than not, the answer is yes - and, in fact, in the case of the one behind that link, the war has already started, just not with guns).

This, needless to say, bodes ill for, say, those planning to travel to China, or, even moreso, those who get singled out on the schoolyard for being from China. Because kids do pick up on these things. It's become quite popular to see the words "China" and "war" used together in news stories.

China has declared war on tainted food products (one wonders if the food products are putting up much of a defense), and on gender imbalance (which is definitely an issue to watch, since, well, our families include the "lost daughters").

There's also a war on religion (and not only as far as the Vatican and the Dalai Lama are concerned, but also on things like Bible camps) and on, um, U.S. soy beans (which again seems a little silly, except inasmuch as it fits into the big picture of diplomacy/trade relations/why is my visa taking so long to process).

It's easier to get behind the war on pollution and, for those of us who know Runescape and fear its effects on our domestic GPAs (parents of net-savvy teenagers, you hear me, don't you?), the war on videogame addiction. (And by the way, that turns out to be another interesting story about the unintended consequences of the One-Child Policy.)

But why is it always a "war" or, at best, a "crackdown"? Why is the news from this one country always told in military terms? What are we bracing for?


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