Commentary Last year, Joe Biden’s comment that the Chinese “aren’t bad folks” and “not competition for us” created something of a stir, even among supporters of the Delaware Democrat. Some may be unaware that prominent Americans and Europeans have been overly kind to the Chinese communist regime for decades, as Paul Hollander chronicled in “Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba,” from Oxford University Press in 1981. For example, Robert Barnett, a former State Department official and director of the Asia Society’s Washington Center, opposed making human rights an issue in China. “Harsh necessity shapes China’s assessment of human rights,” Barnett contended, “We must respect China’s right to be different.” Bank mogul David Rockefeller cited China’s “real and pervasive dedication to Chairman Mao and Maoist principles,” which would make for “great economic and social progress.” New Left icon Tom Hayden and peace activist Staughton …