On March 30, Global Times carried an article “United States – Destroyer of Peace and Stability in Asia-Pacific Region”.

Following are the main contents of the article.

China firmly defends world peace and stability and it remains clear and transparent in its policy towards the U.S., consistent with the principles of mutual respect, peaceful co-existence, and cooperation and co-prosperity.

Regretfully, however, the U.S. and its allies build a “small fence” or rather form cliques to counter China. They also, denying facts, slander China saying that it is “violating the international order”.

Recently, the U.S. schemes to set up “Indo-Pacific version of NATO” by accelerating strategic deployment and readjusting the alliance system of Europe and Asia.

The reality has already proved that the U.S. is the worst destroyer of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

In his speech of May 2022 with regard to the U.S. policy towards China, the U.S. State Secretary Blinken said that China is the only country with the will to re-establish the international order and also with the capabilities to impose such a will by dint of its ever-growing economic, diplomatic, military and technological might.

In fact, the U.S. and its allies had intentionally created conflict in the Asia-Pacific region since long time ago, thus becoming the worst destroyer of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

Since the foundation of new China, it has never ignited a war on its own initiative, but strongly supported the international system centered on the United Nations and the international order based on international law; it has championed the peaceful resolution of inter-state disagreements and conflicts through dialogue and negotiation.

However, a handful of countries and international organizations tried to gain control over the international order and to monopolize the right to law interpretation.

China has never recognized the talks held inside the “small fence” and has never allowed the enforcement of “individual principle” upon itself by other countries.

Through the alleged “arbitration plan in South China Sea”, the U.S. and its allies claimed time and again that they support the arbitration result announced by the “temporary court of arbitration” and argued that China is violating “international law.” But in fact, the U.S. has not even signed the “UN Convention on Maritime Law”.

Most of the speculation about “provocation of China”, a product of the U.S. and its allies, is full of distorted interpretation of the international order and is of obvious political hue.

The U.S. and its allies are also trying to internationalize the internal affairs of China.

Taiwan issue belongs to the category of internal affairs of China. However, countries like the U.S., Japan, Australia and the U.K. unilaterally defined “the status quo” of the cross-strait situation and denounced China as a side seeking to “change the status quo”. The U.S. and Japan, in particular, inflicted serious damage upon peace and stability in the strait, sending a wrong signal to the forces seeking “independence of Taiwan”.

China is an active initiator of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and its management.

Even in the face of such factors as COVID-19 crisis and protectionism, China has consistently maintained its outward openness on a high level and continued to enhance its foreign trade.

After the start of the unilateral trade war waged by the U.S., China took open measures - tariff cut and streamlining of customs clearance – and also lifted its restrictions on proportion of foreign capital shares in automobile and finance sectors.

Bilateral trade between China and ASEAN continued to expand despite the global health crisis and reached 975.3 billion USD in 2022 from 641.5 billion USD of 2019. Likewise, China and ASEAN have been the biggest trade partners for several years and further strengthened trade cooperation within the region.

In a nutshell, China has strived for development and joint prosperity hand in hand with the neighboring countries regardless of change in the international situation.

In the meantime, however, the U.S. and its allies strived for separation within the framework of regional cooperation, by inciting, with good deal of energy, ideological confrontation between the countries in the region.

Though the U.S. professed to put efforts on the economic development of the Asia-Pacific region, it was indeed like “little rain after deafening thunder” as the actual investment did not account to much, compared to its wordy commitment.

Take ASEAN for instance: The U.S. made a commitment at the special U.S.-ASEAN summit in May 2022, to an additional aid worth of 150 million USD including 60 million USD of “defense cooperation” for ASEAN. However, compared to the 40 billion USD ratified by the U.S. Congress in May 2022 to be provided to Ukraine in the name of assistance, the 150 million USD is indeed a trivial sum.

Despite the U.S. instigation to anti-China action on a plea of ideological position, ASEAN did not feel like dancing to the U.S. tune.

Analysts comment that the U.S. diplomacy toward ASEAN can be characterized by “divergence between words and deeds” and “big words, poor results.”

It is also the plain truth of the situation.

After taking the Oval Office, the U.S. President Biden said on more than ten occasions that he attaches importance to ASEAN countries. His actions, however, were quite contradictory to his professed position.

In November 2022, Biden participated in the G20 summit held in Indonesia. He then went straight back to Washington, without taking part in the following APEC Summit Retreat in Thailand.

Even during the special U.S.-ASEAN Summit in May 2022, Biden did not hold bilateral talks with ASEAN leaders, saying that he was “very busy”.

With such insincerity, it is only too natural that the U.S. has had little success in its diplomacy towards ASEAN.

With the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, even some U.S. and Western politicians hell-bent on ideological confrontation are concerned about the potential destructive consequences of conflicts between big powers.

The current rapidly increasing dangers to international security have been spawned by the Cold War mentality of the U.S. and Western countries.

For example, one of the causes of the Russia-Ukraine conflict was the constant eastward expansion of NATO, and the deadlock over the Iranian nuclear issue was because the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the talks and applied “extreme pressure” on Iran.

In the Asia-Pacific region, too, dangers of a direct clash between China and the U.S. are increasing owing to Washington’s policy of containing China.

The U.S. State Secretary Blinken said to the effect that the outbreak of a military confrontation between the U.S. and China or even a mere inclination towards such a direction is, in itself, quite contrary to the interests of the two countries. The doings of the U.S. and its allies, however, run completely counter to what Blinken said, aggravating dangers of U.S.-China clash in the Taiwan Straits and in the South China Sea.

Having emerged as the world’s sole superpower in the aftermath of the Cold War, the U.S. has maintained its supremacy by advocating “world’s universal values” and applied itself to seeking out imaginary enemies in order to divert domestic contradictions to elsewhere and maintain its alliance system.

China has firmly safeguarded the international system with the UN at its center and the international order based on international law, under the banner of building a human community of shared destiny. However, the U.S., held onto its ideological prejudice on China and made a strategically wrong judgement.

The U.S. regards China as its most serious geopolitical challenge and strategic competitor. Obsessed with such a biased view on China, it is resorting to every conceivable means to blockade and stifle the latter.

At the moment, the U.S. is pursuing a comprehensive pressure policy towards China. Security-wise, it is attempting to set up an “Indo-Pacific version of NATO” by mustering its allies. In other fields including the economy, culture, science and technology, and education, it is tightening restrictive measures on China. It is even making use of world management issues like epidemic control as a political tool and weapon.

At the moment, the U.S. and the Western countries are trying to aggravate confrontation between big powers and have already incurred many consequences in the process.

First, economic cooperation between China and the Western countries have been hindered and multinational corporations and affiliated industries have witnessed a sharp decline in the interests.

In 2022, the overall performance of American semi-conductor businesses deteriorated and their operating income and profits also decreased markedly.

Second, cooperation in global management issues including epidemic control and climate change is suffering a heavy blow, further increasing the “global management” deficit.

At the recent G20 foreign ministerial meeting, the Indian Prime Minister Modi said that the financial crisis, climate change, epidemic disease, act of terrorism, and war in recent years show that our global management ended in failure.

Third, there are strong voices from within the U.S. allies expressing apprehensions about getting involved in conflicts to which they have no connection.

The day after the tripartite declaration by the U.S., U.K. and Australia on the details of the “AUKUS” agreement, Paul Keating, the former Prime Minister of Australia and the former leader of its Labour Party, strongly criticized this agreement, saying that it is the “worst deal ever in history” and is “one of the worst diplomatic blunder” made by the Australian Labour government.

Fourth, the inveterate mentality and behavior of the U.S. political elites who would recklessly reject anything related to China has now reached a relatively dangerous point where it can easily spiral out of control.

The two political parties of the U.S. have long been in a “race” to decide “who is tougher against China” and have criticized each other for being “soft” in their policy towards China.

With the start of another election season in the U.S., it is quite predictable that many groundless lies will be invented about China and the whole society will be compelled to pay the price for the ideological hysteria of a minority of political figures.

American scholar Freeman said that the U.S. is trying to deal a “chain blow” to China by resorting to all sorts of conceivable means except policy of dialogue.

If we look into the root cause, the U.S. has never treated China as an equal, but has only pursued its absolute security all along, has not in the least tried to reflect upon its prejudices and mistakes, but has used what it calls “defending of rules” as a pretext for defending its unilateral supremacy.

The ensuing result is that, the more the U.S. tries to “defend” itself, the more insecure it will become.

If the U.S. continues to apply pressure on China by joining forces with its allies and continues to contain China while posing as a “defender of rules”, it will only harm the already fragile mutual trust between the U.S. and China and further drive the bilateral relations towards a sorrier pass.