It began early in the year when the High Court heard the full details in the case of Tristan Dowse, who was adopted by an Irish couple in August 2001 and then returned to an orphanage in Indonesia in May 2003 because the family failed to "bond" with him.

Suddenly foreign adoption began to stink of selfish consumers with more money than taste, handing over oily wads of cash in exchange for an infant fashion accessory, and then abandoning it to its fate when they grow tired of it. And that was months before Madonna brought calumny on her own head in October by seemingly wrestling a Malawian child from the scrawny brown arms of his father, and offering a corrupt nation a million quid to go along with it.

Now a great horde of supposedly well-meaning types, who seem to think that adopted children, given the choice, would put country before love, have begun to cast adoptive parents almost as crooks.

They can't have progeny the natural way, so they plan to cheat nature. They use their knowledge of the venal practices of western civilisation to overcome the natural opposition of naive third-world countries, robbing tearful mothers of their children, and proud nations of their citizens.

It's a great pity, what's happening with foreign adoption.

While no-one suggests it is a great act of altruism, there is supposed to be something in it for both parties. A parent gets to share their hardearned emotional, moral and financial resources with someone who needs them. And if a child is to be screwed up by his childhood . . . as we're led to believe most children are, not just those who are yanked out of their native culture . . . then at the very least he will have got dental care and an education out of it. Need we add, also, that nobody questions your right, your purpose or your suitability to become a natural parent (and let's keep it that way)?

The cherry was put on this whole unsavoury cake last week, though, with the news that China intends to restrict adoptions by foreigners in future, banning those who are unmarried, disabled, or obese.

Yes, you read it right. China, new best friend of the west, where two-thirds of the population live in rural areas with patchy access to food, water and electricity; China, whose orphanages are full of unwanted daughters thanks to the one-child policy that's been in force since 1979 (they do make exceptions to this, mind, if your first child is a girl or otherwise disabled); China, a country disabled by what is loosely described as communism by those of who live in what are loosely described as democracies;

China, an increasingly obese dictatorship that has entered into a marriage of convenience with capitalism. . . China is getting picky.

Despite appearances, it hasn't been a great year for China either. Those who believe in Rule By Market may be standing around applauding its economic growth, but then there are the 2008 Olympics to consider, and the small matter of those human-rights abuses that are just an embarrassment to everyone, especially the western governments that to date have not taken a stand against them.

Amnesty International's latest report cites China's overt censorship, torture, imprisonment without trial, suppression of religion and political dissent, and the fact that it comfortably outdoes even the United States on capital punishment. Also, Amnesty just will not leave China alone on the one-child policy, and reports allegations of bribery, forced abortions, forced sterilisations and even infanticide among those who go against it.

China's population is now said to be 1.3 billion, though noone can be exactly sure, because the state is full of terrified citizens who lie about the number of offspring they have. This is the country that has now declared it doesn't want fat people, or single people, or disabled people, to offer a home to its abandoned children.

It would be almost funny if it weren't so sad.