I usually ignore people who call me pro-American or anti-American. But when a friend recently asked me whether I was pro-American or anti-American, I told him "neither". I love many things about the United States, but I have been a critic of US foreign policy on many issues.

I was regarded by my colleagues as pro-American when working in the China Daily's Shanghai bureau, because I used to attend and cover many events at the US consulate in Shanghai. As a matter of fact, a colleague who used to cover the British consulate's events at the time was viewed as being pro-British.

Later, when I was posted in Washington, I met with several former US consuls general in Shanghai. One of them was still in the Foreign Service while several of them were working with think tanks and consulting firms. We used to meet often at events, and agreed and disagreed on a long list of issues. And I am pretty sure they didn't think I was anti-American, although they knew I was critical of the US' interventionist foreign policy and its invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

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They also knew I wanted good China-US relations. The dozens of profile pieces I wrote about US scholars and experts on China such as Ezra Vogel, Jan Berris, Kenneth Lieberthal, Jeffrey Bader, J. Stapleton Roy and Richard Solomon had the same aspirations and opinions on issues as those scholars who had worked for positive bilateral relations.

I attended hundreds of seminars in think tanks and universities in New York and Washington. The three journalism fellowships I participated in allowed me to develop a better understanding of the US and the world.

The mood during those years was nothing like today. No one dismissed my arguments just because I was from China or worked for Chinese news media. The fact that Brookings Institution posted my articles, including the profiles of their China experts, on its website, showed the respect they had for Chinese journalists.

Those were the years when bilateral exchanges were applauded, not demonized. US President Barack Obama launched the"100,000 Strong Initiative" to encourage US students to study in China. When China and the US agreed on a 10-year visa program in 2014, I covered the first US national who received the visa to visit China. Edmund Downie, then a 23-year-old Yale University graduate, is now a PhD candidate at Princeton University, specializing in China's climate policy and decarbonization.

I have many American friends, including some I regard as family. I love American music and movies and just watched Tom Cruise's latest, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, in Brussels on Wednesday.

In retrospect, those years seem like the honeymoon period for China-US relations despite many challenges. Unfortunately, the hysterical smear campaigns and containment policy against China over the past years have severely damaged bilateral relations.

I was angry when US Senator Marsha Blackburn wrote on Twitter on Dec 3, 2020, that "China has a 5,000-year history of cheating and stealing. Some things will never change…".It was not only misinformation but also an insult to every Chinese, including our ancestors.

I was angry with the US administration for reviving McCarthyism, having interviewed Lynne Joiner, author of Honorable Survivor: Mao's China, McCarthy's America, and the Persecution of John S. Service, an interview I did just two weeks after my arrival in the US in November 2009.

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Due to the propagation of "neo-McCarthyism "in the US, many American scholars on China have gone silent. But after reading a headline, "Reverse Kissinger? No, Double Kissinger", in Sunday's The National Interest, I was delighted. It turned out to be an article by Lyle Goldstein, an expert on China I knew well back in my Washington years. In the article, Goldstein says the incumbent US administration should defuse tensions with both China and Russia.

I am just like Goldstein, who advocates for good China-US relations. China and the US have much to learn from each other, and hence should cooperate with each other. It's absurd to label me pro- or anti-US. It's like seeing the world as black and white and missing the other colors, including the many shades of gray.

The author is chief of China Daily EU Bureau based in Brussels.

Contact the writer at chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn