The “China Initiative” was the name of a controversial program run by the US Department of Justice, which was introduced in late 2018 during the first Trump administration.

It operated under a typically broad mandate to counter alleged China-related national security threats to the United States. Might messages in Chinese fortune cookies represent, as the Justice Department described it, “covert efforts to influence the American public and policymakers without proper transparency”? Unlikely, but hard to tell, so sweeping was the authorization.

The program steadily got a bad name. Heavy-handed intimidation of mainly Chinese scholars at all levels in the US eventually became a hallmark: 88 percent of people charged under the scheme had Chinese ancestry, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study. The project was also regarded as green-lighting heightened abuse of Asian Americans generally, especially following President Trump’s strident blame-game evasion tactics after his devastating mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis in America.

In early 2022, following rising levels of potent criticism and after a strategic review, the Biden administration decided to shut down the China Initiative. Announcing this, then-assistant attorney general for national security Matthew Olsen said, “By grouping cases under the China Initiative rubric, we helped give rise to a harmful perception that the department applies a lower standard to investigate and prosecute criminal conduct related to that country or that we in some way view people with racial, ethnic or familial ties to China differently.”

In a recent, blistering review, Mike German from the Brennan Center for Justice argued that the program was “an unmitigated failure that caused lasting harm to US national interests”, adding that it fueled a damaging perception of bias in the Justice Department and quickly devolved into “a campaign of racial profiling and fear-mongering … which continues to threaten American primacy in science and technology.”

A hard lesson well-learned? Not in hyper-neurotic America, alas.

Within a year of the program’s shutdown, Marco Rubio, President Trump’s recently confirmed new secretary of state, was one of three Senate co-sponsors of an arguably even more harsh replacement, the “Protect America’s Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act”. Meanwhile, Republicans in the House of Representatives took further action to accelerate this reckless reinstatement project in 2024.

As a fascinating article from Washington’s Smithsonian Institution explains, America’s first China Initiative was arguably launched, in different circumstances, over 160 years ago. This 2022 paper, drawing on extensive research by Stanford historian Gordon H Chang, provides a detailed overview of the construction of America’s first transcontinental railroad.

In 1860, it took six months to cross coast to coast by wagon train, but a rail connection promised to reduce this transit time to two weeks. The Union Pacific railroad company began building this connection from the East after the US Civil War ended in 1865, using largely Irish labor.

America is now bullying and threatening allies and foes — and US residents — with uncommon gusto. Apparently, this is a fundamental aspect of how America will be made great again. ... Someone (not Einstein) once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

The Central Pacific Railroad Co was making far slower progress, working from the West, due to a lack of recruitable manpower. However, after seeing the exceptional work done by a small Chinese work crew recruited from the California goldfields, the company sent emissaries to Guangdong province in China to hire fresh hands. They ultimately employed around 12,000 new Chinese workers. These work teams displayed a remarkable capacity to self-organize and to build new rail-track at an unmatchable pace. Without them, the Western connection of the transcontinental line could not have been completed in the way it was by 1869.

Many of these men perished while working. No Chinese workers were honored during the final connection ceremony. Subsequently, these men were forced to live separately, and white mobs repeatedly attacked their settlements. Hundreds were driven out of their homes. In Los Angeles, 18 Chinese residents were lynched in a single day, including one child. Chang notes that “Almost every Chinese community in the western United States in the 19th century suffered destruction.”

Various American voices continue to argue vigorously that the China Initiative, from 2018 should not be brought back. However, Republicans now control the White House, both houses of Congress and the US Supreme Court. So, the way looks clear for a refreshed, aggressive version of the China Initiative — supported by the hawkish new secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Literal lynchings of Chinese scholars in the US will not follow. But metaphoric examples may well materialize, and Sinophobia in the US looks set to spike meanly upwards.

America is now bullying and threatening allies and foes — and US residents — with uncommon gusto. Apparently, this is a fundamental aspect of how America will be made great again. It looks, too, like a splendid way to drive exceptional scientific talent out of the US. According to the Brennan Center, the departure (to China) of Chinese-born scientists rose 75 percent once Trump’s first China Initiative gained traction. Someone (not Einstein) once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

The author is an adjunct professor at the faculty of law, Hong Kong University.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.