Washington should build bridges, not walls, for China-US exchanges

When McCarthyism rose to prominence in the 1950s in the United States, suspicion of broad Communist penetration in the US reached a hysterical pitch, and many people of Chinese descent in the nation were targeted with unsubstantiated allegations.

It appears that the anti-Communist hysteria is staging a vicious comeback. In its newest move, the US administration said Wednesday it had revoked visas for more than 1,000 Chinese nationals since June, due to so-called security risks posed by Chinese graduate students and scholars.

The excuses employed by some Washington China-bashers to obstruct normal China-US people-to-people exchanges simply cannot stand. In their attempt to smear Chinese students or even travelers in the country, they are trying either to grab political gains or to contain China's development.

One of the most notorious figures is US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who recently said the White House is weighing further restrictions on Chinese students in the country, and threatened to close out all Confucius Institutes on US campuses under the pretext of ridding the country of Beijing's influence.

Washington's growing hostility toward China and its drive to demonize China-US cooperation have severely harmed bilateral cultural and people-to-people exchanges. Its xenophobia and isolationism will only lead to consequences too hard for the two peoples to bear.

For decades, China-US cultural and people-to-people exchanges have contributed greatly to fostering mutual understanding between the two peoples, and promoting bilateral ties.

Chinese students have been sent to study in the United States for over 140 years now, with exchanges resuming in the late 1970s after a temporary halt due to Cold War tensions.

China has been the largest source of international students in the United States for 10 consecutive years, with nearly 370,000 students in US higher education programs in the 2018-2019 academic year -- more than one third of the total, according to the Institute of International Education.

America as a melting pot also relies on immigrants to boost its development in various sectors. Take Artificial Intelligence (AI) for example: the United States has built its leading edge by attracting international talents to work at US institutions, according to a report published in June by Macro Polo, an in-house think tank of the Paulson Institute in Chicago. And the country would lose 29 percent of its top-tier AI researchers if visas and immigration status were rescinded for researchers originated from China, it said.

However, "the Land of the Free" that once embraced openness and diversity has been sliding into isolationism and megalomania.

Amid the surge of anti-China sentiments in Washington, the rights of these Chinese people have been violated rather than protected in the nation that brands itself as a human rights defender. Many saw their visas revoked, personal life plans disrupted, financial costs increased, and some were even interrogated and arrested without reasonable cause, stoking fear and worry.

The hyping up of decoupling with China and a scheme to politicize normal bilateral exchanges by those zero-summers in Washington have received firm domestic opposition. US universities and scientific organizations, such as the University of Michigan, took a strong stance in opposition to Washington's "arbitrary restrictions" on students from China proclaimed in late May.

In this increasingly interconnected world, building up walls will only keep one ever more isolated, while building bridges can facilitate communication and thus promote progress.

China-hawks in Washington have the imperative to take to heart rational voices of others, and stop obstructing normal exchanges between Chinese and American people -- or else, it is the interests of America that will be harmed.