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It is no longer diplomatic to be diplomatic about China, as a fiery new Red Scare fans through the United States.

The latest example of this 21st century McCarthyism came at a Senate confirmation hearing for President Joe Biden's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield felt she had to forcefully disavow a speech she made in 2019 to students at the historically black Savannah State University.

The topic of the rather bland speech was Chinese and U.S. initiatives in Africa, where she has worked for much of her diplomatic career.

Republican Senators tried to derail her 35-year career because of the speech, in which she rejected Cold War narratives and zero-sum approaches to helping Africa develop.

Thomas-Greenfield forcefully distanced herself from career-threatening passages like, "in the U.S.-China-Africa relationship, win-win-win cooperation is possible and common development can be achieved," and "those who would criticize Chinese predatory lending or the governments who accept these deals must also acknowledge that in many cases, the United States and the West is not showing up or offering viable alternatives."

Under fire from Republican Senators as being soft on China, Thomas-Greenfield said, "Truthfully, I wish I had not accepted the specific invitation, and I came across from the experience frankly alarmed at the way the Confucius Institutes were engaging with the Black community in Georgia."

In the current Red Scare, the Confucius Institute has been attacked for doing exactly what it and its counterparts are supposed to do – build bridges with other cultures.

Institutions like Germany's Goethe-Institut, France's Alliance Française, and the American Center are operating in cities around the world to bolster friendship and understanding.

This is apparently acceptable when other countries do it, but not for China.

A 2019 bipartisan report from the Senate found, "The Chinese government controls nearly every aspect of Confucius Institutes at U.S. schools, including its funding, staff, and all programming" and "has veto authority over events and speakers."

These are pure lies. Some American centers are operating in exactly the same way instead.

In the current anti-China atmosphere, a snare laid by former secretary of state Mike Pompeo on the way out the door threatens to trip up the Biden administration.

In his last days in office, Pompeo compared China to ISIL and the Nazis, and declared Beijing was conducting "genocide" in Xinjiang.

Thomas-Greenfield, when pressed on Pompeo's claim at her confirmation hearing, used too much force to escape this trap – "What is happening with the Uygurs is horrendous ... I lived through and experienced and witnessed a genocide in Rwanda. So I know what it looks like and I know what it feels like. And this feels like that."

She escaped painting the administration into a corner by noting that Pompeo did not follow proper procedures for his genocide declaration, and the State Department is reviewing it.

Thomas-Greenfield may have successfully evaded this trap, but she used an untethered comparison in the process.

As Thomas-Greenfield witnessed in Rwanda, over a 100-day period militias trained and organized by the military slaughtered hundreds of thousands of members of a minority group as well as political opponents.

Comparing this to even the most uncharitable characterizations of the situation in Xinjiang is outrageous and hyperbolic.

But Thomas-Greenfield and other U.S. politicians knowingly make these easily refutable statements for the sake of career advancement amid the current anti-China hysteria.

The fire lit by Trump administration hardliners aiming to decouple the U.S. and China is hotter than ever.

In the short term, any politician that wants to stay in power needs to distance themselves from China or get burned.

On the one hand, the Biden administration has sent welcome signals that it wants to resume professional diplomacy and engagement with the world.

On the other hand, it is also showing it plans to be "tough on China."

Let's hope that this administration can navigate the line between protecting U.S. interests and pandering to domestic audiences.

It must find a way to slowly bring down the heat of America's latest Red Scare, or risk entering into a new Cold War, or worse.

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