The rise of "neo-McCarthyism" in the United States is a concern, risking evoking racism against Chinese Americans, warned Kevin Rudd, president of the non-profit Asia Society Policy Institute, here on Wednesday.

In an address at the think tank on the U.S.-China Relations, the former Australian prime minister said that an increasingly polarized debate was staging in both the United States and China about the other nation.

"Americans believe China is stealing their future," he said, while the Chinese "believe that the Americans are now deliberately containing China because Americans cannot cope with the idea of ever being number two."

Casting himself as "a student of history," Rudd said he was concerned about the rise of "neo-McCarthyism" in the United States in this highly charged debate.

"I've seen what happened in the 1950s in this country, when Joe McCarthy ran and ride," he said when answering a question from Xinhua, in a reference to the initiator of McCarthyism.

He said the practice caused some people "automatically subject to a series of open persecutions and judiciary sanctions" on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations.

Now in the United States emerged signs of "semi-official questioning of the patriotism of a Chinese American, for example," Rudd told Xinhua. "I think it's a very dangerous step."

The western society "should all feel deeply uncomfortable about that. So I don't want to see that unfold," he said, adding that the debate in the United States about the national security interest should not invite "the demons of racism and ideological witch trials into the public court."