As front pages across the United States trumpet news of the "Chinese threat," the Chinese language press has focused on the "American threat." Convinced that the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was deliberate, Chinese strategists are worried that the U.S. is headed for a major confrontation. PNS associate editor Franz Schurmann writes extensively on international affairs. He is Professor Emeritus from UC Berkeley and author of "The Logic of World Power" and "The Foreign Politics of Richard Nixon."

It will probably come as a surprise to Americans who have heard about the "China threat" that, in China, Chinese strategists are talking about the "American threat."

They now openly say that the danger of major global war has returned -- that means war between America and China. And a reading of Chinese- language media from around the world shows that these views are widely disseminated.

According to interviews published in the Beijing magazine "China Review," Chinese strategists believe the U.S. has embarked on a destabilization program similar to the one that U.S.-led NATO is now carrying out in Yugoslavia. They base this conviction in part on their firm belief that the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was deliberate.

Further, they argue that China must now confront Washington's "two ocean strategy" -- the newly aggressive NATO in the Atlantic and the new activist U.S.-Japan military alliance in the Pacific.

The Beijing strategists see six U.S.-against-China scenarios in the offing:

• Testing China's response capabilities in crisis situations

• Stirring up conflict and chaos within China

• Creating incidents in the broad new "defense perimeter" defined in the revised U.S.-Japan Security Treaty

• Forcing China into an arms race to bankrupt her as the Reagan administration did to the old Soviet Union

• Using military build-ups to compel China to renounce a last-resort armed option to reunite with Taiwan

• Making trouble for China's economic development

What do the Beijing strategists think is the reason for this new anti-China aggressiveness in the U.S.? The Beijing-linked but New-York based "China Press" offers an indirect answer on its front page by reprinting former president Carter's op-ed piece for "USA Today."

Carter warned of deep divisions on China policy in America's leadership. Some leaders, he says, are hostile to China and are trying to drive a deep wedge between the two countries. He is especially worried that this is happening in dangerous times. These splits are not only between the White House and Congress but within the Clinton administration.

Older Beijing strategists know from experience that splits within a leadership can create political imbalance, and that can lead to rash actions. Indeed, many in Beijing believe that political infighting in Washington may account for the embassy bombing.

Chinese Ambassador Li Zhaoxing made clear in an address to the Washington Press Club that talks with Washington won't resume until it gives Beijing a full accounting for that bombing. White House press secretary James Rubin has indicated one may soon be forthcoming.

A half-century ago a lot of the anti-China sentiment came from the question: who lost China to communism? This time it comes from a revolutionary concept called the "democratic peace," which sprang up in the wake of the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

It can be traced to philosopher Immanuel Kant's vision of a "republican peace." Watching the French Revolution unfold, Kant wrote that if all countries became republican (that is, democratic) then the Christian dream of "peace on earth" would be realized.

One place where this idea caught on were American strategic think tanks, inspired by the great waves of democratization set off by the Tiananmen demonstrations in 1989.

After 1991 Russia was no longer was seen as an enemy because it had become democratic. China moved to the top of the list of potential enemies.

For Beijing strategists, Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui is considered a most worrisome enemy. He has become a champion of "democratic peace," and in a recent book urged the mainland communists to move towards democracy by breaking the country up into seven regions.

Not surprisingly, the reaction in Beijing was negative -- but the proposal also brought deep unease in Taiwan. The last thing the prosperous Taiwanese want is war. NATO justifies its war against Yugoslavia on grounds that human rights know no boundaries. Neither does democratic peace.

Democratic peace is part of the new Third Way ideology fostered by British prime minister Tony Blair -- a hawk on Yugoslavia.

If peace requires pacification -- both words come from the Latin pax -- then war is a legitimate way to achieve peace.

That's exactly what is worrying the Beijing strategists. And their recommendation to their government is that maybe the time has come once again to prepare for war -- even a big one.