The atmosphere of suspicion and dislike surrounding China and the Chinese threatens to make president Clinton's upcoming trip to that country an exercise in futility. PNS Associate Editor Franz Schurmann hears some familiar notes in the objections to today's China, and recalls a China Lobby of a very different sort. Schurmann, professor emeritus of history and sociology at U.C. Berkeley, is author of numerous books on global politics, including "The Logic of World Power." PART I OF IV OF A SPECIAL CHINA SERIES.

Not long after World War II, some public figures in the United States began to sound alarms about a Red Tide sweeping over China -- a tide which threatened our very existence.

Prominent among them was Henry Luce -- publisher of Time and Life, then the country's biggest selling magazines. He and others managed to convince many Americans that a great world revolution was forming, carrying the ideology of Soviet Communists.

But while Soviet leaders were open in their desire to rule the world, the most dangerous -- because they were so many and, although it was said only in a thousand indirect ways, because they were not white -- were the Chinese Communists.

On October 1, 1949, the Chinese Communists proclaimed a new Peoples Republic of China -- only a week or so after the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic device. In December, China's leader, Mao Zedong, took the long train trip to Moscow, and in January, 1950, the two countries announced their alliance.

One month later, a Senator from Wisconsin named Joseph McCarthy said in a speech, "I have in my hand a list of 205 cases of individuals who appear to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party." In later speeches, he identified some of these as employees of the State Department.

Over the next years, Congress, the media, and labor unions, among others, launched a witch hunt against Communists or their allies in key institutions -- prominent among them, Americans who had earlier been identified with China.

A lobbying group formed and operated close to the highest levels of the government. The "China Lobby" had two objectives. It opposed any and every move to establish even the flimsiest of linkages between "Red China" and the United States. It also sought the destruction of that country.

The first goal was fairly well realized within the United States. The media, with very few exceptions, were silent about Red China, and academics who showed any interest in it found themselves without a job. Those in Congress who had any doubts kept silent.

The second task involved Taiwan, where Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek -- although he had given up the presidency of China in January, 1949 -- and fled to Taiwan -- that December proclaimed himself president of the Republic of China, and surrounded himself with powerful and military leaders. Reporting on Taiwan suddenly disappeared from the U.S. media.

During the 1950s, the U.S. and China got into a shooting war with each other in Korea. They almost got into another war in 1958 and there were clashes -- kept secret -- during the Vietnam war.

Nevertheless, the China Lobby, for all its power and volume, had feet of clay. As early as 1956, President Eisenhower made some slight gestures toward the Peoples Republic. Kennedy made somewhat stronger moves. And Nixon and Kissinger, facing the shambles of the Vietnam War, finally cut the knot. In February, 1972, when Nixon flew to Beijing, the old China Lobby breathed its last.