Only a yesterday or two ago most of us were resigned to apparent permanence of the seamless web of a China policy first fashioned by a Democratic Administration in 1950 and then made holy by two Republican administrations. Condemned by the United Nations in 1951, and charged ever since with monstrous abuse of China's great traditions, the People's Republic of China has been Washington's justification for heavy commitments of U.S. resources to extensive diplomatic and economic strategies.