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AssessingChina's growing power incorrectly has always proved to be hazardous. US policymakers have underestimated China's power at least twice since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, once catastrophically and another time with serious consequences for US credibility. In the fall of 1950, one US official dismissed the possibility that the war-weary government in Beijing would intervene to stop the United States' drive to unify Korea." I don't think China wants to be chopped up," he said. But he was wrong, and this and other misjudgments led to Beijing's intervention in the Korean War, at enormous human cost to China, the United States, and the Korean people on both sides of the 38th Parallel. President Bill Clinton also underestimated China. In 1993, his administration threatened to suspend normal tariff treatment if Beijing did not improve its human rights record within a year. China proved …