Abstract: Through reviewing the original foreign literatures such as travel writing and investigation reports written by many westerners who came to China, and systematically sorting out various publications of academic communities such as the American Forestry Society and the Engineering Society, as well as the Chinese and western English newspapers and periodicals, this paper focuses on the background of China’s forests, the main group of people collecting information, and the communication letters from the modern westerners. From five aspects, namely, the main media, the process of dissemination, doubts and disputes, this paper carries out a thorough study of the historical process of forming a stereotype of deforestation in northern China in Europe and the United States from the viewpoints of missionaries, scientists, engineers and the government. The article holds that the American scholars’ full understanding of the high similarity of geographical environment between China and the United States is the background that the United States pays more attention to China’s forests than Europe in modern times. At that time, the United States was facing a similar forest crisis as China, and urgently needed to promote the whole society to set up the idea of learning lessons and protecting forests and other resources through propaganda of negative textbooks. It is the driving force for the United States to focus on China’s forests. The formation of stereotype of deforestation in northern China is not only the process of establishing the forest protection system, perfecting forestry laws and administration in the United States, but also the process of circulation of forestry knowledge between China and the United States by repeatedly publicizing the phenomenon of deforestation in China and drawing lessons from it.