For the second time this month, the US State Department has imposed visa restrictions on some Chinese officials for what it alleges are their roles in human rights abuses.

Announcing the new restrictions on Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said they will apply to "Chinese officials who are believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, policies or actions aimed at repressing religious and spiritual practitioners, members of ethnic minority groups, dissidents, human rights defenders, journalists, labor organizers, civil society organizers, and peaceful protestors", indicating the present administration intends to persist with its hostile policies toward China through to the end of its term.

Spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry Hua Chunying said the moves lay bare the strong ideological prejudice and ingrained Cold War mentality of the US administration, which harms US interests, as they not only tarnish the image of the country, but also hinder bilateral people-to-people exchanges.

China is by no means a fan of tit-for-tat confrontations. It prefers to resolve differences through dialogue. But the way that Washington is trying to smear, bully and contain China leaves Beijing no option but to respond like-for-like.

As before, China is expected to respond in kind with countermeasures against some US politicians responsible for, or complicit in, policies or actions that interfere in the internal affairs of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and Taiwan, which have been a focus of attention for the anti-China hawks in Washington as they view them as a means to apply pressure on China.

It is evident that what the anti-China hawks in the US care about is not human rights, but how to bind China in the shackles of its human rights accusations so as to squeeze the room China has for dialogue with the rest of the international community and incite local secessionists to realize their dreams in the hope of engineering regime change in China.

But the incoming US administration should realize that its predecessor's witch hunting of China has only served to isolate the US from the rest of the world, as the international community has a clear judgment of the incumbent administration's China policy, which has been highly damaging to the whole world. That is why it has reaped little from the tremendous efforts it has made to drive a wedge between China and other countries.

Were it not for the disservice the US administration's stance has done to bilateral relations, the two countries' cooperation would only have strengthened during this global public health crisis, to the benefit of all — and that is something that other countries are well aware of.