The China Syndrome THE EDITOR Polish friends have long reiterated how the Communists wear a population down not just through force, fear and propaganda but with minutiae . Endless arbitrary changes to rules and regulations that govern daily life simply tire people out. As fatigue sets in, hearts and minds become ever more lethargic, docile and pliable. Though sobering and educational, this first-hand knowledge of oppression was too far removed from workaday Western life to really hit home. Seeing, however,is believing. The East European experience has become far more comprehensible now that our putative democracies have made this debilitating "strategy of tension" their own. While ruthlessly applying the same coercive methods at the service of vested interests high and low, they too have exhausted everyone with minutiae: ever-shifting policies and measures, most of them baseless and futile, which confuse, infuriate and further divide and demoralise the elec...