The "China Action Plan" highlights the distorted mentality of the United States toward China

Beijing, 28 Dec (Xinhua) -- The "China Action Plan" highlights the distorted mentality of the United States toward China

Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhu Ruiqing

"Today, for all researchers in the United States, any connection with China is a sword of Damocles ... In the scientific field, intimidation against Asian-American experts is further evidence of structural racial discrimination in American society. Julio Rios, a Spanish expert on China, wrote a few days ago.

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice launched the China Action Plan. Cloaked in the cloak of "national security" and wearing racist colored glasses, this plan has constantly planted bribes to smear Chinese scientists, resulting in one unjust, false and wrongly decided case after another. The plan highlights the distorted mentality of the United States toward China and has played a role in fueling the already serious racial discrimination problem in American society.

Groundless accusations

Hu Anming, a professor at the University of Tennessee in the United States, is the first Scholar of Chinese Descent to appear in court for the "China Action Plan." The FBI arrested Mr. Hu and his family in 2020 after prolonged surveillance, and the Justice Department subsequently filed a lawsuit against him for "concealing ties with China." U.S. media reported that the federal government "used all its judicial power" in The Hu Anming case, but in September the judge declared that all charges against Hu Anming were not established.

Some US public opinion believes that the results of this trial fully reflect that the US Government, in the absence of real evidence, has blatantly engaged in the presumption of guilt against scientists of Chinese descent. Gisela Kusagawa, a full-time lawyer for the Asian American Association for the Advancement of Justice, said that "national security issues are being used as an excuse to target our group."

"The more I looked into the China Action Plan, the more I felt there was something wrong with it." Margaret Lewis, a law professor at Seton Hall University in the United States, said.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland declared in October when questioned by Congress about the China Action Plan that the United States never conducts investigations or prosecutions based on racial identity or national origin. But according to statistics released this month by the MIT Technology Review, the China Action Plan has involved 77 cases so far, and 148 people have been charged, nearly 90 percent of whom are of Chinese descent.

In November, the MIT Technology Review asked the U.S. Department of Justice to explain the true intent of the China Action Plan and publish a list of all cases, but two days later the Justice Department deleted 39 "defendants" related to the China Action Plan on its official website, many of whom had been subjected to high-profile allegations, but the lawsuit against them all failed.

As more and more Chinese scientists are being groundlessly accused, U.S. civil society groups and scholars at Stanford University, Yale University and other universities have spoken out, criticizing the "China Action Plan" for harming American academic freedom and scientific competitiveness, and demanding that discriminatory investigations of Chinese researchers be stopped.

"Political Virus"

In recent years, the strategic anxiety of the United States has been intensifying, and its mentality toward China has become more and more distorted. Vince Cable, the former leader of the British Liberal Democratic Party, pointed out that the fear of China activated the "yellow peril" left over from American history and eventually mutated into a vicious "political virus".

During the Trump administration, Skinner, then director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department, publicly referred to China as the first "non-white adversary" the United States faced. Sven, an expert on China in the United States, pointedly pointed out that this is "a rather terrible and racist argument."

For their own interests, some US politicians, on the one hand, have constantly hyped up topics such as the "China threat theory" and launched policies such as the "China Action Plan" to please target voters; on the other hand, they have regarded China as a "scapegoat" to cover up the problems of the United States itself. For example, during the COVID-19 epidemic, the US government, for political purposes such as shirking responsibility, has continuously thrown the pot and smeared China by hyping up the so-called "laboratory leak theory" and other means.

Mahbubani Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow at the Institute of Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, recently wrote that Americans should ask themselves: "How much of the response to China's rise is based on a sober and rational analysis, and how much is deeply disturbed by the success of non-Caucasian civilization." ”

Prejudice against China

U.S. politics has long been dominated by whites, and systemic racism is deeply rooted, with minority groups, including Chinese, being victims. The "China Action Plan" has further exacerbated prejudice and discrimination against China in American society.

Discrimination against Chinese Americans in the United States has a long history. At the end of the 19th century, the economic recession in the United States triggered a wave of unemployment, and public opinion pointed the finger at Chinese laborers, accusing them of stealing jobs. It was in this context that the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was introduced. This is the first immigration bill in U.S. history to target specific ethnic groups, which "legitimizes" the anti-China movement, resulting in unbridled violence against Chinese in American society, creating countless tragedies. In 1885, in Rox Springs, Wyoming, more than 100 white miners brutally attacked their Chinese colleagues, killing 28 people and injuring 15 others; in 1887, in Hers Valley, Oregon, 34 Chinese miners were ambushed and killed by a group of whites, making the area known as "Bloody Beach for Chinese Workers"...

During World War II, the U.S. government repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943 for political reasons. After a long struggle with the Chinese-American community, the U.S. Congress did not formally apologize for the Chinese Exclusion Act in legislative form until 2012. However, racial discrimination against Chinese americans in American society is still deeply rooted, some TELEVISION programs openly publish insulting remarks against China, some film and television works are full of stereotypes of China, and some American maps still retain insulting place names. During the COVID-19 epidemic, the US government wantonly smeared China on issues such as the origin of the epidemic, which made Chinese ethnic groups suffer more discrimination.

Citing data from rights groups, Bloomberg said the China Action Plan reflects growing racial prejudice against Asian-Americans in the United States, which led to a 71 percent increase in violence against Asian-Americans between 2019 and 2020.

A New York Times op-ed once called racial discrimination against Asians a "mental plague" and noted with concern: "This new wave of racism could set the United States back to the 'yellow peril' era, where Asian immigrants are seen as a threat to Westerner jobs and Western civilization." ”

Persecuting Chinese experts, discriminating against the Chinese ethnic group, inciting xenophobic words and deeds, and all kinds of evil deeds in the United States driven by the "political virus" and "spiritual plague" will eventually eat themselves back if they do not converge.