The United States and its allies like Australia, have become terrified by the prospect of their citizens learning more about China through the exchange of ideas and people. They apparently do not trust their citizens to assess information from multiple competing sources and reach an acceptable conclusion.

At the urging of shadowy security agencies, they have made exchanges more difficult, with student visa restrictions and changes to US-China exchange programs. Australia has followed suit, barring Chinese students from selected post-graduate studies and dropping other China study courses.

These actions undermine the ability to improve relationships and engagement because they take away the opportunity for people to learn by easily meeting with others to exchange ideas and knowledge.

They seem to believe the exchange of ideas and friendship is some form of attack on Western society. In their understandings of the world, Confucius Institutes are brainwashing students by teaching Chinese culture and history. Learning to wield a calligraphy brush is a security threat whilst hosting a US Studies Centre is never about foreign interference.

Students who defend China’s policies are portrayed as a threat to free speech in universities while students who support US policies, including those on Gaza,  are entitled to the protection of free speech.

Recent policy changes around visas, cultural and academic exchanges serve to isolate and divide by accelerating disengagement from China. This is happening at a time when there is an even greater need to understand China, its history, its ambitions and policy.

The distorted analysis and fabricated attributions of China policy  promoted by self-confessed China hawks in the Murdoch press is a poor substitute for genuine understanding of the political complexity of China and our region. Attempts to bring balance in the discussion is often treated as a  threat to Australian sovereignty and brings a stream of social media invective.

Irrespective of politics, many people want to learn and engage. As the chair of the advisory board for the Confucius Institute of the Charles Darwin University, I recently presented awards to young Australian students who were studying Chinese.

I also presented awards to Chinese students who had chosen to study in Australia. Both groups wanted to learn about a foreign country and its culture.

The desire to improve knowledge is not a recent phenomenon and nor is it a one-way flow. Caught in a heavy rainstorm during the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, I had no choice but to accept a ride from a private or “black” taxi. The driver had taught himself English from American action films and was eager to practise his language skills.

Some of the language was inappropriate but there was no denying his desire to learn about a different culture.

The need to facilitate better understanding was once supported at the highest levels. At the 2014 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Beijing, I joined the applause when then US president Barack Obama announced the 10-year business visa for Chinese citizens.

It set a benchmark for co-operation and understanding by facilitating easier and more frequent exchanges of people. It was a benchmark that remains unmatched by Australia.

This was a time when interest in understanding China was high. I briefed government leaders and business delegations on protocols and cultural differences. The learning curve was steep and difficult.

Those who accepted the challenge developed enduring friendships and business in China. Others found the challenge too daunting and slipped back into the comfortable myths and misconceptions with which they had grown up. These shibboleths, sustained with relentless rhetoric on the pages of The Australian newspaper and under the Morrison Government, are heard  incessantly in the halls of parliament.

The benchmark of engagement set at the 2014 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting was dismantled piece by piece over the following decade.

In his first term, Trump led the charge to limit the opportunities to learn about China, with the reduction in visa validity from 10 years to one month for some Chinese visitors. His second term has erected additional barriers to the exchange of ideas, research and communication with China.

Compliant Australia has followed the trajectory of this exchange withdrawal, refusing to reciprocate China’s decision  to drop visa requirements for Australian visitors to China. The sustained attacks on the work of Confucius Institutes and forced staff reductions for Chinese news services have continued unabated.

Combined with Trump’s persistent mischaracterisation of China, these show a concerted effort to limit the opportunities to develop a better and more comprehensive understanding of China. A field of ignorance is easily ploughed and made ripe for the planting of unfounded suspicions fertilised with fear.

There appears to be little desire to improve Australia’s understanding of China. Foreign Minister Penny Wong repeats the hypocrisy of demanding compliance with a rules-based order which has been shattered by the way Australia and the West have selectively ignored its application when it comes to halting war crimes in Gaza. China expertise, along with broad informed knowledge of China, is diminishing in DFAT.

This lack of desire to support engagement, which leads to deeper understanding, sets senior political leaders, and the public adrift in a sea of ignorance. They become easy prey for those who peddle anti-Chinese narratives including the fabrication that President Xi is committed to invading Taiwan in 2027. It’s a favourite Trumpian, and now Australian, fantasy, not supported by any credible evidence.

It’s a great pity that political forces, driven in part by foreign interference, are attempting to undermine this learning which denies people the opportunity to develop an understanding of somewhere other than their home country.

It’s not sufficient to shake our heads in dismay. Unless people speak up, racism will take root and once it does, it becomes extremely difficult to eliminate.

Prohibiting the co-operative exchange of ideas eventually leads to far more unpleasant exchanges. History shows that if we cannot exchange ideas, if we cannot discuss our differences, even by means of translators, then the worst instincts of the human race are given free rein.

I do not fear knowledge of China, but I do fear ignorance about China.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.