THE DEATH LAST WEEK of Madame Chang kai-Shek, wife of the Generalissimo who lost his battle to prevent the communist takeover of China, brings to mind the Republican accusation that communists in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations were responsible for that loss. “Who lost China?” was the accusatory question by critics who believed they had the answer. Half-century later it is the Democrats who are in full cry. With America hemorrhaging factory jobs, and China running up a trade surplus with the United States estimated to hit $130 billion this year, they are demanding to know, “Who loosed China?” Democrats claim to have the answer: The free traders in the Bush administration have loosed China on world markets, and refuse to protect American jobs from competition with a country that combines a limitless supply of $1-a-day labor with a currency not allowed to appreciate against the dollar. Not to mention stealing intellectual property with such abandon that Commerce secretary Don Evans used a visit there to buy a bootleg DVD of Quentin Tarantino’s just-released “Kill Bill” for a mere $1.

WITH A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION now only one year away, and the Midwest’s manufacturing states a must-win for Bush, the administration’s critics think they can force the president to take action to stem the flow of imports from China.